


My Blossoming Love

by TinyFrost



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Flower! Viktor, M/M, Vicchan Lives, Wizard! Yuuri, baby! Victor, prolly gonna add some violence at the end tho...but not yet, then adult Victor lol, this au was too precious and I tried to do a little something
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 03:19:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14416554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyFrost/pseuds/TinyFrost
Summary: Yuuri is a lonely wizard living with the sole company of the plants and flowers he grows until he decides to mix his own feelings with the growth of one of them, resulting in a beautiful flower-baby whose blooms are a mirror of his emotions.But Yuuri starts to have trouble the moment he realizes maybe his affection is out of place, that leaving aside the fact that a war is starting to bloom as well...A big, big, big, huuuuuuge thanks to Laloom for letting me use her beautiful AU into making this content!!!Please go check her on la-loom.tumblr.com and give a scroll through her #myblossominglove tag to see where this fic came from.





	1. The Wizard

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [My Blossoming Love](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/373479) by Laloom. 



“Is that what he said?!” Minako cried out, scandalized.

Yuuri let out a sigh so deep it made his shoulders fall and get limp “That’s what he said”

Minako’s jaw fell open in a clear mix of disbelief and anger. Air around her started to get fizzy and popping with electricity until the cookie she was holding suddenly got burnt, flooding the air with a clear smell of smoke.

“What in the name of Merlin’s underpants!” she snapped her fingers, turning the burnt cookie into actual ash “And that’s what our future king prioritizes on his citizens? Better get some wizards who can blow up things rather than someone who can keep people alive? Well it’s nice to know that!”

Yuuri smiled sadly “You know he might have his reasons, and a war is a war wherever you look it at”

His teacher was angrily slurping the tea in her cup before the comment made her put it down “Yes, and a war is stupid wherever you look at it too!”

Well, it wasn’t like Yuuri could deny that statement. Crown Prince Jean was to be king in less than one year and one of the first things he had assured his future subjects with, was how he would face the growing food shortage by conquering the fertile land of the nation’s northern neighbor.

A great majority had applauded His Majesty’s decision and even the wizards, one of the most educated classes in the country, had succumbed under the promise of gold.

And even though Yuuri did have good intentions when he had answered the invitation to the selection offering his medical services, he had to admit the gold not only could help his parents and sister back in the farm but he could also make a small budget to do some repairs around the greenhouse and still have spare money.

That, of course, if they had accepted his services.

“Wait are you telling me you are a wizard with no useful magic for the Crown?” the prince himself had asked

“Uh... I don’t honestly think a bit of medicine can be of no use to your soldiers, your Majesty”

A loud laugh had followed Yuuri’s statement “Doctors and healers are needed by weak soldiers in weak nations and if I am certain about anything in this world, mister Katsuki, is the fact that this is not a weak nation!”

That being said, he was dismissed from the palace.

“This is the stupidest thing he has said so far and let me tell you that prick has some phrases! Poor Celestino can confirm that to you. His father should have listened to us when he manifested his powers instead of letting him rot being a spoiled child! Now we will suffer thanks to his parental side in a useless war…”

Minako stopped herself when her eyes met her student’s face, eyebrows crunched in concern and his long eyelashes trying to hide away the sadness in his eyes. Not having a stable income meant no money for his family, no money for his family meant he would still need to be away from them and that meant still living in absolute solitude with the sole exception of his patients and her own spare visits

Her long and elegant fingers reached his with a reassuring smile.

“Hey, everything will be fine little one. I know you will be asked to go back to the palace as soon as he realizes the true cost of war” she brushed away one of the many rebel hair strands on his forehead “And when he does, I want you to send Vicchan straight to my place with the news so I can have a good laugh!”

Yuuri chuckled before bursting into laugh when his small fluffy owl came to ruffle his ear with his little peak after hearing the older witch call his name.

The rest of the evening passed quietly with Minako talking him about life back at the farming town of Hasetsu, the help his parents had given to the other farmers with their crops, the hordes of men asking for Mari’s hand, the fact of how her School had received less students than in previous years and how she had admitted a boy who had dismissed from the Royal School.

“He was actually a student of Lilia but he decided to run away the moment Jean was on his way to the throne. Guess he was one of the wise ones when he left the palace” Minako was refilling their teacups for probably the twentieth time already “He has some pretty strong blood magic he could use for good so maybe you’ll let me bring him here when his moodiness gets down a bit… that if he does, of course”

Her student smiled widely “If he wants to, I don’t see why not. There are plenty of people here who could use an actual healer rather than a botanist” Yuuri raised a hand and a tray full of freshly baked cookies landed softly on the table at his command “And I could use some company as well”

Yuuri’s words struck an idea on Minako while she was mindlessly making her spoon add sugar and mix it in her tea. With her eyes bright, she crouched down on her travel bag desperately looking for something.

“Nee, Yuuri” she called pulling out used tissues, some dried herbs and notes “do you still have that growing plant book I gave you? The red one?”

Yuuri nodded and climbed upstairs and returned carrying a thick yellow-paged book which made a deaf thump when he placed it on the table “What for, Minako sensei?”

By all answer, she threw her purse at him and pulled the book towards her, licked her fingertips and started to flip the pages, her eyes scanning the drawings and ink letters with the speed of flying darts. “Look for a jar with a bean in it! It has a red plug”

“This one?” Yuuri handled a glass jar half the size of his pinky with a single white bean in it. Minako nodded vigorously while extending her hands at it like a little girl “What is this though?”

Minako commanded a chair to levitate next to her and tapped for Yuuri to sit on it. She pointed to the book, wide open on an ink and color illustration.

It was a tree with silvery leaves, small blue flowers and a smooth-looking trunk. It looked ethereal, the kind of

“Wow” he muttered in awe “It’s beautiful… What is it?”

“This, little one, is a _Loquentium argentum_. A speaking silver tree” she caressed the illustration with reverence “People in the ancient times believed that the Gods spoke through them and only certain people could translate the tree’s words. But it’s actually a deeper bond than that”

Her fingers pointed to a small writing on the sides of the illustration which read that those kind of trees could only grow out of a white bean, planted on a full moon night and spoken-to during the whole night by the botanist. Secrets and personal experiences needed to be interchanged in order to form a bond so strong only the botanist could hear the tree and vice versa.

“That sounds… pretty intimate I guess?” Yuuri muttered, not really excited by the idea “And what’s that? Part of the trunk or the roots?” his finger was pointing at a strange image, brown and with a lot of little black veins.

Minako let out a laugh and brushed the comment off with her hand “Oh, no, no! It’s just some coffee I dropped on it by accident! But don’t worry, I’m pretty sure it didn’t say anything important other than the texture of the tree and stuff like that” she fixed her gaze on Yuuri anew “So, wanna give it a try?”

Yuuri squeezed the loose fabric of his pants with nervousness. It wasn’t really that he was nervous about the process (he had done a lot of plant growing much more complex processes) but more of what it implied from him. The people who knew him and some of his secrets were people who had been with him when those secrets had happened but he wasn’t really excited to share all of that intimate stuff with a bean.

His teacher seemed to catch the thoughts flooding his mind and placed a reassuring hand over his shoulder, caressing it the same way she had when he failed at a spell back in the School at Hasetsu.

“It’s just an idea, ok? You don’t want to do it, don’t do it. But let me tell you, this is the actual epitome of what a botanist can do and I’m sure if you go back to the palace with this, that Jean will have to at least assign you as Medical Head”

Yuuri didn’t laughed out loud but his teacher caught the excited gleam on his eyes at the thought.

A few minutes later and after helping him pick up and wash the dishes and cups, the witch was already at the entrance gate, travel bag in hand and with her hat on her head.

“Well, little one,” she spread her arms widely and embraced him “this is all for the day. Not to worry, I will be back in three months at most, just let me finish the school year”

She felt her student nod on her shoulder before getting a little apart. “Please send my love to my parents and Mari- nee chan”

Minako nodded, already on her way out and taking a match out of the purse. Her hair started to float softly, a clear sign of the electricity building up around her and igniting the match she then lit on herself.

If Yuuri hadn’t watched her perform that exact same act as far as his memory could recall, he would have panicked at the sight of his beloved teacher being eaten by the fire. And even though he had witnessed it countless times, he was still amazed by how the fire danced around Minako like the beautiful northern lights around the Earth. He caught one last flash smile before the fire extinguished and took Minako away with it.

The music of crickets and his own breath were the only sounds filling the air now.

He hurried to close the gate, place glass screens over the most delicate plants in his garden, locked himself in home and made his way to his bedroom.

In the meantime, a huge and thick book laid forgotten on a table in the kitchen next to a tiny jar holding a shiny bean.

                         

* * *

 

 

The fact that Yuuri’s magic allowed him to grow basically anything, didn’t exactly mean he had all of his food for free. Wizard or not, he was still human and needed something else than veggies and fruits.

That was the main reason every Monday he would put some of his best looking harvests in a little rusty cart and pushed it all the way to the market in the outskirts of town after placing a small sign on his gate warning his usual customers he would return after sunset.

He had a small and tidy stand in the middle of the produce part of the market and the same way he had his constant customers back at home, he had another loot at the market where the rumors said that given he was a botanist, it was for sure his harvests had heling properties.

The moment Yuuri stepped into the large streets which made up the market, he noticed sort of a joyful yet heavy feeling floating in the air.

“Nee! Yuuri!” Yuuko’s voice draw his attention from the hanging flags and banners hanging on the streets to her own stall “It’s good to see you! Isn’t Minako with you?”

Yuuri gladly accepted the warm hug his childhood friend offered him “She actually just came and left yesterday. She also came for the Palace’s invitation but she absolutely refused it when the prince told her what he was going to use it for”

Yuuko’s head tilted at the thought of it. She and Yuuri had trained their magic under Minako’s care so he was pretty sure she was actually surprised the prince was still in one piece after asking their former teacher to serve in war as something else than a living bomber.

Oh, Yuuko had also had magic once. She used to be a quite talented animal witch, able to speak to animals, understand and even borrow some of their abilities. Yet, she had given up her powers in order to marry Takeshi Nishigori, a human with no magic.

However, it was clear she didn’t regret it for a second. Yuuri could see it in the cheerful spark of her eyes.

Other than the energy outbursts coming from the Nishigori triplets, the morning and afternoon at the market passed slowly and quietly. Customers came and go until Yuuri could fill up halfway one of his produce boxes with everything he hadn’t sold.

His friend and her family had already started to pick up the cans of cream and heavy cheese balls into their truck as the sun started to hang low in the sky.

“You want us to give you a ride?” Takeshi asked when they finished cleaning up their stall “We can put your cart in the back, no big deal”

“Thanks, but I’m gonna stay a bit longer and see if I can sell this” Yuuri bowed slightly

The triplets waved goodbye from the truck’s window and Yuuko reminded him their house was open for a coffee any time before the family’s vehicle got lost after a few streets. Only a few merchants and even fewer customers were left in the market aisles.

Yuuri sometimes wondered if it would be worth it to give up his powers, what he considered the most beautiful thing in his life, in order to date people who would probably just dump him in less than two weeks.

He had juggled the possibilities many more times than he could count and even Minako told him she wouldn’t hold a grudge on her best student if he did because being a wizard tended to be a very lonely existence and the possible wizard prospects tended to be quite boring or picky people.

Yet, the fulfilling feeling he got when one of his patients thanked for his services in city outskirts where it would be impossible to get medical attention if it wasn’t for him.

He could solve other people’s problems but not his. How ironical, he thought while cleaning up his stall and placing his left over produce in his cart.

The crickets’ singing accompanied him all the way back home while the sun started to tint the sky in a beautiful warm palette. Yuuri really enjoyed these leisurely walks every Monday, they had a soothing effect on him and the warm light filtering through the clouds was quite a sight.

He didn’t seem to be the only one with such thoughts as his eyes also found a couple lying on the grassy hills by the road, their own cart parked nearby. Yuuri quickened his steps until he was able to distinguish the gate covered in climbing plants.

His house was quite beautiful. Well, maybe not the house by itself; that was a small building made up by a kitchen, a dining room that worked equally as a living room, a large bath much to the style of his hometown, his bedroom and a bedroom for his patients in the upper floor. 

Yet, the beautiful part came in when his garden did.

Clouds of color were what his flowers looked like from afar which moved the youngsters to ask for a small bouqute for their partners, his fellow farmers would look at his vegetables and he had even had painters ask for permission to enter his garden and make a painting of the fruit of his trees. But what he considered the most beautiful of his work was for sure inside the greenhouse attached to the main building.

Big windows would provide a beautiful enviroment flooded by light, illuminating neatly-placed pots on different shelves and working tables. The air was a beautiful mix of smells coming from the medical flowers and plants with long leaves and branches made green and yellow curtains creating the illusion of a series of cascades coming from the walls.

It was definately the most beautiful part of his house, he thought while leaving his cart outside of the kitchen and simply took in the produce to store it in the fridge. He wasn’t hungry at all, but Vicchan did seem to be even though he made sure to leave his tiny plate full of little fish and some meat stripes.

“I’m coming, hang on a bit” he soothed his little owl, caressing his soft feathers behind the head

Yuuri had to step on his tip toes to reach a container in which he kept the slated meat stripes Vicchan loved so much, dropping a small jar the moment he pulled the jar to him. Luckily, it didn’t shatter into a million pieces but it wasn’t that strange for Yuuri to find things placed elsewhere due to some spells he used to put some order at home every Sunday night.

While Vicchan ate in front on him, Yuuri fidgeted the shiny little seed in between his fingers.

Minako-sensei had told him growing a _Loquentium argentum_ wasn’t exactly a complex task to do, especially for someone who grew plants through magic on a daily basis like him, yet it could be quite an emotional load due to the bond which had to be stablished between the growing plant and him.

“Vicchan, do you think it’s a good idea to do this?” he asked to the little owl who simply stared directly at him with his huge bright eyes “You’re right, me talking to an owl might be a good sign I need someone to speak too”

Yuuri stood up violently in a rush to his room to look for his astrolabe and one of his astrology notebooks. Of course he did look at the night sky every night but his bad vision usually costed him not knowing if the constellations had already moved or confusing the moon’s phases.

That night. There was full moon that night.

“Minako-sensei” Yuuri sighed “you planned this, didn’t you?”


	2. The Flower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri grows a beautiful magical plant in his garden, expecting a miracle... but not one this big.  
> Thanks again to the awesome Laloom for allowing me to do this work based on her own AU!! Please go check her blog to find more about this story and her own work!

Bean.

Soil.

Drop of blood.

Bean.

Soil.

Drop of blood.

Bean.

Soil.

Drop of blood.

That was it.

It was easy. An over-easy recipe actually, especially considering Yuuri had grown plants with recipes over a thousand ingredients in really specific quantities. Then please someone tell me why the hell I am shaking, he asked himself.

He was sitting in front of one of what he liked to call a “first-home” pot, a tiny container in which the plant would spend its first weeks of life, the red book opened wide on a working table next to him in the pages that mattered to him at the moment.

With the exception of Minako’s coffee stain, the directions on the pages were perfectly clear. In a very generic way, all he had to do was to put the bean inside the pot, let a drop of blood fall into it and cover it with soil before he started to talk to it.

Yuuri sighed loudly. He still had no idea of where or what he should start talking about once the bean was already buried under a soft and cold earthy layer so while some inspiration came to his mind, he started the planting process.

“Um, well, my name is Yuuri” he started quietly “I can do magic, I can do it ever since I was like three or something. Both my parents can do it too and my sister. They don’t live here with me, but we lived together until a few years ago…”

His tongue and mind started to untangle and with each syllable it seemed that some kind of burden on his shoulders started to slowly fade away. Most of what he said was about his childhood in the farming town of Hasetsu, his schooldays with Yuuko and Minako-sensei, the afternoons helping out his mother in the kitchen, early mornings along his Dad at the crop fields and long, lazy weekends with Mari-nee san eating watermelon on the house’s terrace.

But he also spoke out loud about other things. Other, more complex and quite difficult things. At least for him.

Yuuri’s lips started to become an open door for the first time some of his classmate’s mocked him because his magic wasn’t useful except for growing weeds, the first time he felt that nasty oppression on his chest in front of other people he would later on learn to live with, the first time he thought it would be better to stay back at home than to be outside and become a target for foreign looks, the first time all the voices around him started to get into his head, the first time a person he felt something for ditched him because he wasn’t handsome enough and even the first time he had thought about an… escape.

Words kept flowing, it didn’t matter how happy or hurtful they were, until tears started to tickle the line of his neck. His hands shouldn’t be move from the soil so he shrugged to wipe them away.

“Ugh, sorry. I guess it’s too much information, even for you” he muttered gently to the pot “I wonder if it’s true that you can answer me back. How would you do it? Would you actually make a sound or would it be like a voice in my mind? Maybe you’ll make me feel what you want to tell me?”

Gosh, if the plant could actually speak it would probably tell him to shut up. He giggled at the thought.

“I find you to be funny already and I don’t even know you, but I guess that’s the fun! I’m already an open book to you and you’re a mystery to me in every aspect I think of” his already earthy thumbs caressed the soft soil underneath them with an almost lovingly gaze “But maybe that’s the deal between us: you will be a mystery for me to solve.”

Yuuri’s cheeks suddenly felt warm in a blush he couldn’t see by himself but could deduce out of the loud heartbeats he felt inside his chest.

His limbs felt a little bit sore by that point of the night and the sensation of having little bugs walking over his legs made him think maybe it was a better idea if he sat on the floor already. With his back reclined on one of the glass walls, still holding the pot against his chest.

“You know, I’d love to solve you out” he muttered to the pot before a yawn struck him “If my calculations aren’t wrong, it’s only a few hours until dawn. Maybe, would you like me to tell you something nice for a good ending? Oh! Would you like to hear about the first time I did magic? It was when I was four or three…”

That question came to be the last thing Yuuri consciously remembered from the night, as the next time his head was clear was when he woke up cuddling with the pot, his glasses misplaced and his hair made a mess and splattered with dirt. Vicchan was snoozing quietly on his shoulder quite on the contrary with the birds out in the garden chanting to the upcoming sun.

Yuuri looked down to the pot he was still holding against his chest and felt his eyelids lift up in surprise: there was a tiny, small, shiny, green sprout coming out of the earth shyly.

“Oh, hi little one! You really grow up fast” he greeted the little sprout joyfully “Well, the book said you’ll be needing food until night so, how about you let me get some good sleep before we feed you?”

Yuuri’s back cracked loudly the moment he stood up, even though being twenty three years old wasn’t supposed to bring some joint-cracks, before he left the little pot hidden from the already incoming sunlight rays and making his way out of the greenhouse.

 

* * *

 

 

During the rest of the week and every morning Yuuri was down at the greenhouse attending his plants, he found that the book was right on the part which suggested to have a large amount of different-sized pots given that he was changing the sprout basically every day. Those minutes he used on getting the little one moved to a bigger accommodation were also useful for him to notice the small changes on it like the way the soft green color had been substituted by an almost blinding white, how the points of the growing roots were and turning into a soft shade of blue (it was normal according to the book) and how what started as a light perfume would start to get thicker when he entered in the greenhouse.

“You know, I told Vicchan yesterday how I haven’t really thought about a name for you yet” their ‘talks’ now came easier with each day and almost felt natural “Though, I think I’d really like to wait so you can choose too, you know?”

As expected, there was no actual verbal response. He giggled at his own voice in the emptiness of the room.

“Oh, look at that!” he exclaimed “You’re growing a flower! It’s a pretty color blue, just like your roots. I really want to be here when you bloom!”

Monday came again as the market stalls flooding the outskirts’ streets but Yuuri decided to get a companion other than the produce boxes.

“What is this?” Axel poked gently at the still closed flower cocoon

“Are you gonna sell it?” Lutz started to check the pot in the search of a price tag

“Or is it a gift for someone?” Loop neared her little nose trying to catch a glimpse of perfume

Yuuri placed it in the highest spot he could find at his stall, afraid the triplets could accidentally damage the sprout. During the previous days he had grown so used to the mere presence of the plant the mere thought of not having it around for an entire day was too much.

“Um no, it’s a…project? I am working on? And it’s definitely not for giving it away”

“Oh, too bad. I was about to ask for the price” a deep voice called their attention.

Standing arrogantly, widely smiling, covered in an attire that was too much for basically every daily-life task and electric blue eyes piercingly staring at the blue cocoon, was Crown Prince Jean-Jacques.

The Nishigori family bowed deeply at the sight of the soon-to-be king while Yuuri obeyed his instincts first thing and stood protectively in front of the sprout before one of the guards around the Prince reminded him of his status and obligated his head to bow down with a respect he honestly didn’t feel.

“I think my dear Lady Isabella would adore to have that beautiful flower in her personal garden” the prince insisted, leaning over Yuuri’s stall.

The poor botanist could only think of placing the pot back in the cart, covered by a spare jacket he had brought.

“I… it’s not for sale, your majesty” Yuuri stuttered nervously “It’s a magical grown plant” Something that if I remember well you said you didn’t need, he thought and was careful enough to keep shut.

His eyes wandered through the faces of the guards surrounding the prince who seemed to be ready to jump onto his little sprout if the prince decided it was a gift worthy of his fiancée.  His mind started to scheme something to turn their attention off and before he could control his tongue, it had already thrown a response to the Prince.

“I…if I remember right, this kind of plants only bloom a single flower and…and maybe I could grow something more visual if Your Majesty gives me a little bit of time?”

He felt the Nishigori family’s stares fixed on him as well as the guards’ before they drifted towards the Prince. He was a common face at the market and, while his attitude was always polite, none of the merchants doubted he would take what he wanted, no matter the price.

The prince’s loud laugh interrupted his thoughts.

“You really know about the matters of the heart, don’t you Mr. Katsuki? You’re right, a lady like my Isabella would love to have something more than just a single flower” one of the guards came close at a snap of his fingers and passed him a bag full of coins “This should be enough for you to have a nice and full bouquet by the next Monday”

The heaviness of the bag in Yuuri’s hands made him think all that money could easily grant his family building the inn they had dreamed so much about. His brain barely managed him to mumble a ‘Yes, your Majesty’.

“That’s great!” the prince exclaimed at the time he commanded his retinue to keep up their shopping trip “Come on, there are still things on Lady Isabella’s list!”

Yuuri felt his chest relax once the Prince was out of sight and his little pot was safe again.

Thankfully for his poor nerves, the rest of the day was filled with regular customers who would just focus on what they needed from his stall and the most they would do was to give a compliment about his flowerpot. As night started to slowly approach and the market to close its streets, Yuuri made his way back home quietly chatting with the lovely blue sprout.

“He said he wanted beautiful flowers for Lady Isabella, more beautiful than you but I’m starting to think maybe it will be kind of impossible to do that” he was lying his chin over his hands while walking “If I was awake for a whole night for you I can’t imagine how many should I do it again to get a whole bouquet! But I didn’t think there was another way to get money for my parents’ inn…we’ll go visit when you bloom if you want. I’m sure they’ll like you!”

 

* * *

 

Yuuri woke up in the middle of the night with a light dizziness. His nose could sense the flower’s perfume all the way up to his bedroom and that put him in an alert state.

Could it be that something had gone wrong? Maybe he fed it too much ambrosia? Was the earth too wet? Were its roots dry? Had it grown out of the pot again? Maybe it was too enclosed where he had left it? Was a bug bothering it?

All of those questions could have waited a little more if it hadn’t been for the sound following the perfume. Yuuri fell from bed, all tangled with the bedsheets, hitting his head on the floor the moment a loud baby cry flooded his ears.

A baby?!

He ran downstairs as fast as he could, following the cry and most surely getting bruises from all the furniture in his way, to the greenhouse, where the crying was louder. All of his pots were in place, his instruments kept neatly, his flowers blossoming high on the shelves, crops geometrically ordered and his silver and blue sprout… gone.

In its place, lying on a bed of earth, pieces of silver herb and loose blue petals was a baby crying loudly.

“What in the name of Merlin’s grey hairs…?!”

The baby seemed to react to his presence and the cries got softer as he saw a pair of tiny hands reaching to his direction. They looked the same way the white and soft plant had, he realized its hair was a long and flowy silver cascade and his surprise was only bigger when he realized there was still part of a small navel connected to the earth the baby was lying on.

“Vicchan! Vicchan!” he yelled over his shoulder to get his little owl’s attention “Go straight to Yuuko-chan’s house! Tell her to come here! Go!”

He didn’t care his pajamas got all stained in dirt when he hold the little one against his chest, trying his best not to keep him close to the cord and gently rocking him while mumbling softly to ease the cries. After several minutes, he finally managed the baby to calm down and rub sleepily on his chest.

“Shh, shh, everything will be fine, little one” he used a corner of his sleeping shirt to clean the baby’s face “See? That’s better”

 “YUURI!” four acute voices yelled at the exact same time coming from Yuuko and her triplets standing at the greenhouse’s door, making him jump in surprise and restarting the loud baby cries.

A lot of apologies and another rocking session later, Yuuko cut the baby’s navel and Yuuri finally managed to explain the Nishigoris how he had found the baby without ceasing to clarify what said baby was supposed to be.

“A seed you say?” his childhood friend frowned in confusion before scanning again the red book open wide on her lap “But you did everything the book said! You didn’t skip any step nor you got the date wrong… and there isn’t any kind of section that warns of something like this happening. Did Minako-sensei ever mentioned this?”

Yuuri could have sworn a ‘clic’ resonated loudly in his memory.

Being careful of not hurting nor waking up the baby, he tilted down and pointed at the smudgy paragraph at the side of the tree’s illustration “Maybe it’s this! Minako-sensei said she had stained it with coffee, could it be some kind of clause?”

All of five Nishigoris looked down at the old pages, eyes enclosed in a try to make out the words erased by caffeine.

“ _Pa…past tryouts have some… sometimes led to a very specific and different result…_ ” Yuuko started to read cleanly, earning the others’ surprised glances.

“How can you…?” Yuuri barely managed to mumble

Yuuko grinned widely and winked “Who do you think checks the girls’ homework? May I continue?”

The small paragraph spoke about how sometimes when botanist wizards had decided to plant a _Loquentium argentum_ would obtain the ‘unexpected result’ of an actual person created with the same strong bond made during the sowing. The author mentioned that the exact ingredient that caused this result was still a mystery but according to some botanists, it was quite likely that there was a strong connection with the tears shed by a wizard.

“What will you do with him?” Takeshi inquired “If I understand well, this means he is no longer a plant and will grow up the way we all do”

Giving the baby to an orphanage wasn’t even an option, that was for sure. If Prince Jean was to start a war with their northern neighbor, that would mean a shortage of funds for other matters other than war, including the orphanages.

He could also send him away to a family by leaving him at their entrance door and pray for the family to give him a good education and protection from the future conflict. But who could fully assure him they wouldn’t mistreat him or even assault him?

Yuuri didn’t have too much to offer other than his garden, his house and himself to take care of him. But the bond he had created with the baby gave him the feeling that they were part of each other.

“I’ll take care of him” Yuuri declared firmly while his eyes wandered lovingly to the infant in his arms “In the end, he and I are bonded, right little one?”

He brushed his nose with the baby’s with affection, taking an almost-smile from the little chubby lips and earning a short glance from a pair of beautiful blue eyes as deep as the sky. The Nishigoris smiled and celebrated his decision with wide smiles and low-voiced congratulations.

“Have you chosen a name for him?” Yuuko asked, brushing away a shiny silver strand off the little face.

Yuuri slowed down the rocking of his arms and pressing his lips in a thoughtful motion. His eyes looked down at the sleeping child looking for some kind of sign that could tell him which name was the best.

“Victor” he mumbled

The little infant opened his eyes anew to fix his blue gaze in Yuuri’s own while his little hand searched and then squished his index.

“Victor?” Takeshi questioned

Yuuri nodded with a wide smile “Yes, Victor”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! It's Mara here!  
> I actually was going to post this on the weekend but my internet was out and then I was away from my laptop so I apologize for the wait. I'd really like to post this work as quick as possible but please also note I'll start to elongate and make the story more complex from this chapter on so, please be patient with me!
> 
> Thanks for reading!!!


	3. The Blooming Child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri is trying to get used to living with baby Victor and everything it implies, from the trouble of bathing to mom-talks with friends. Of course he shouldn't overlook what also comes when taking care a magic-born kid!

Ok, Yuuri knew that Victor wasn’t going to be a hundred-percent-normal baby (especially considering the infant had been born from a flower grown out of a white bean, some blood drops and some tears). Those thoughts had been a good way to give him a mindset for certain surprises that might happen along the way.

But it seemed that wasn’t enough to prepare him for a certain thing that happened during Victor’s first bath.

“Victor, little one, please be still” ignoring Yuuri’s request, the little baby was arching his back dangerously, trying hard to reach for the bubbles his shampoo was making “I’ll make all of the bubbles you want if you let me finish your bath”

Maybe he shouldn’t have accepted that bubbling baby shampoo Yuuko gifted him with but he had to confess the big basket full of clothes, toys and bathing was an enormous help now that he had a baby at home and little time to go buy everything himself. Victor was growing insanely fast and although Yuuko had already warned him such thing would happen, in his head it still was alarming dressing Victor a different size every morning.

 _Nature is really wise_ , he thought while unpacking some of the gifts the previous day, _it gives the mother nine whole months to be prepared and I only get a few hours._

The silver-hair baby brought him back from his thoughts the moment his squishing little fist finally granted him with the short-lived touch of one of the bubbles before it exploded with a loud ‘ _boop_ ’ before his eyes, pulling out a wide-eyed expression and the first laugh Yuuri heard from him.

It was a light sound, almost like a chuckle. Purely funny and enthusiast.

“Having fun, little one?” Yuuri smiled widely while scrubbing his head gently through the foam, creating new bubbles Victor reached and popped, making him laugh anew. Yuuri, enjoying the happiness of the infant before him, poured a little more of shampoo and started to spread it when his fingers touched something amongst the softness of the hair.

The baby had quite a long hair so Yuuri’s first thought was that maybe it had tangled into a knot. He could wait until the bath was over but even the smallest possibility of hurting the baby made his gut clench tightly.

While holding Victor down with one hand, the other one started to softly straighten and untangle with his fingers, removing the foam at the same time to get a clearer sight, he could reach for the comb but that was too rough. His fingertips didn’t feel any kind of bump in the softness of the hair strands until he got to the baby’s left head side.

At first he thought there were more than just one knot, as that was what his fingertips felt, but as he removed the foam and looked closer he realized there wasn’t a single knot but instead, a yellow flower the size of his pinky’s nail had suddenly sprouted on Victor’s head.

“What the…” Yuuri felt his eyelids rise in surprise.

He poked it lightly, afraid that that small stem was really rooted to the smooth skin as it seemed to be. The moment his fingertips rubbed the petals, Victor laughed again and another yellow spot popped this time close to the head’s middle.

Yuuri rushed on finishing the bath as quickly as possible, dry Victor with a soft towel and call Vicchan to deliver a message.

“Go to Minako-sensei! Tell her I have an emergency!” the owl let an affirmation sound to his botanist and made his way out through an open window.

He was sure his mind would be like a running hamster at that moment. Yuuko had made her best by reading the stained paragraph from the red book which stated people like Victor could happen out of the planted that was supposed to grow but very little more after that. Maybe all of this people who had also grown a baby instead of a plant should’ve written a book or an instructive of some kind of some of the things that happened to people like Victor.

“Little one, does it hurt?” Yuuri asked while nibbling the yellow blooms gently, pulling out another chuckle and possibly another bloom somewhere “Wait, it gives you tickles?”

They kept playing a bit before Victor started to demand for food with loud cries. After feeding and making him burp, Yuuri rocked him to sleep. The Nishigoris had given him a wide crib used by their triplets he had placed next to his own bed and he had made his best to keep it comfortable.

From time to time, he would gently move the hair strands to give a glance to the small flowers, careful not to touch them and scare the slumber away from Victor if he tickled them.

How could it be that the people who had also met people like Victor had not written about his kind? Could there be that they would’ve gotten scared by the responsibility and sent them away? Was it that they lured them to be hidden? Had they gotten disappointed about their experiment’s sudden turn?

Maybe all of it was a sign for him to be the one to track and write down the knowledge so it could be passed on from generation to generation. Yuuri smiled to the sleeping baby as he laid him on the crib.

“You definitely are my mystery to solve, little one” he murmured, placing a kiss on the forehead.

 

* * *

 

 

Two days passed before a surprise visit showed at his doorstep.

Yuuri was working quietly at the greenhouse with Victor lying on a baby carrier while trying to play with the hanging flowers his little hands could reach to. It wouldn’t be long until the Monday Market came around and Prince Jean-Jacques came to his stall demanding for the flower bouquet for Lady Isabella.

“Victor, please be careful” he begged at the baby was rocking back the carrier dangerously under the flower cascade, Yuuri ended placing one of his pots next to Victor so he wouldn’t be moving too much “If you let me finish quick, we will play inside, ok?”

The baby clearly wasn’t paying attention to him, as his face was fully buried in one of the flower corollas and he could hear his laughs. Flowers were starting to pop again close to his forehead making Yuuri smile.

Lady Isabella’s bouquet was going quite well. As Prince Jean-Jacques had been so interested in Victor’s flower and knowing which the eye color of the Lady was, he had made his best to emulate the same soft blue on the fluffy petals and the long light green stems. He hadn’t been able to copy the silver parts but he honestly didn’t want to.

As a botanist wizard he had known more blue fluffy flowers than he could count and most of them had the only and single purpose to look pretty and make vases look pretty. He could count with one hand the ones which had a useful purpose. But Victor had been a special flower from the very beginning and he couldn’t think of anything more distinctive than the silver of his head and such thing was exclusive from him. In his mind, no other flower should have it.

Such were his thoughts when someone rang the bell at the entrance gate, scaring Victor and starting the cries.

“Oh, shh, shh” he picked Victor next to his chest to ease him and made his way to the gate. His rush almost distracted him completely of the little purple bloom popping right on the middle of the baby’s head.

“Yuuri! It’s me! Open up!”

Thank god that he was holding Victor tightly, otherwise he would have probably dropped him.

“Minako–sensei?!”

 

Yuuri was quite the expert when it came to being nervous so he wasn’t quite sure why in the goddamn world was he so nervous of the wide-eyed looks his former teacher was giving little Victor in his arms.

Ignoring the nervousness of his care-taker, Victor was trying to crawl on the table to the woman who had just arrived and had her eyes fixed on him.

“Your mother is going to have a heart attack when she knows this” Minako finally broke the silence with an almost frightened voice before pressing her fingertips on her temples dramatically “You just came out of school and already having a child?! Who the hell is the mother?!”

Yuuri blushed violently and shook his head in denial “Wha… What mother?! There is no mother!”

Minako let out a loud sigh, pressed her lips angrily and pierced him with an icy glance “Yuuri, I wasn’t born yesterday. I don’t really know how stupid you think I am but let me tell you that babies” she pointed accusingly at Victor who was more interested in the taste of his foot than in Minako’s anger “don’t grow out of the earth like potatoes!”

“Well, call me a liar but he did came out of the earth” Yuuri assured to the confused teacher while he commanded the red book came all the way from the greenhouse and opened it on the _Loquentium argentum_ pages.

He explained how he had followed the books instructions as closely as humanly possible only for the ‘experiment’ to be changed by the tears he had shed, he recalled what Yuuko had explained about the stained paragraph and how according to the book he wasn’t the first one to do so, about how shocked he had been when he discovered the particularity of Victor’s blooms and how even more shocked he was when he found out there was absolutely no information on the baby’s kind.

“Is that why you called?” Minako asked, now holding Victor and examining the blooms her student seemed so anxious about “I’ll have to look in my library but if the book I gave you doesn’t hold any knowledge about it, then I highly doubt any other will” her fingertips brushed one of the yellow flowers with curiosity “They pop when he laughs you say?”

“Well, when you rang the bell I found out they also pop when he’s scared” Yuuri pointed out, moving some hair strands to show her a dark purple flower “But I don’t know if they hurt him or if he can control them or if they need special care or…?”

Minako cut his words by placing her hand over his shoulder which had started to shake along with his words. Even Victor had stopped tasting his foot and was finally paying attention at the adults around him.

“Don’t worry, I’ll look for info back at home. But if you say they also give him tickles” Minako nibbled the closest flower within reach, making the baby laugh “I don’t really think they are harmful. By the way, don’t you think raising a baby by yourself is difficult?”

Yuuri sighed heavily, allowing the baby to grab his index and thinking of it as a pacifier. He had thought about it through those days he had spent with Victor and let out a little smile.

“Well, I didn’t think it was going to be easy in the first place” he pressed the baby gently over his chest “but I also have to consider that he is a part of me. I still don’t know if he thinks the same, but I think that separation could be hurtful or even dangerous”

Minako hummed thoughtfully and nodded. The baby had started off as a plant and if Yuuri was part of his roots, then staying next to one and other, was definitely the best thing to do.

Yet, there was still something on her mind.

“Yuuri, isn’t he a bit too big for having like three days?” inquired the fire wizard, tilting her head sideways and holding her chin. Yuuri stared at the baby, then at her, at the baby anew and simply shrugged.

She spent the rest of her express visit helping her former student with his projects at the greenhouse, tending a customer who came looking for a flu remedy and taking care of a bunch of blue flowers. Minako was surprised when she found herself feeding and rocking little Victor.

She even signed up for bathing but the baby started to cry the moment he realized it wasn’t Yuuri who would be with him. The loud yelling only stopped the moment her former student held Victor and shushed him.

Ugh, if she had knew from the beginning Yuuri was a mommy’s kid, she could already read Victor was a Yuuri’s kid.

 

* * *

 

 

With Minako-sensei gone, the bouquet done and himself being more at ease with caring for little Victor, Monday morning came around.

Using a wide scarf he had at the bottom of his closet, he tried to put Victor on his back and tie the cloth around but he immediately regretted the idea when the baby started to wiggle his legs in an attempt to settle comfortably.

Yuuri’s head immediately started to play worst-case scenarios in which Victor fell through the cloth, Victor getting injured from the position, someone stealing the baby from his back… and a whole lot of things that made him shiver.

“Nope, nope, nope” he muttered while gently placing Victor over his chest and tying the scarf anew “There. You’ll be comfier and I’ll be calmer, yes?”

Victor, who was quite entertained pulling the ornament pocket on Yuuri’s shirt, looked up at his caretaker and let out a wide heart-smile at the time a yellow flower popped amongst the silver strands.

Yuuri still hadn’t find out if the little blooms could actually fall off Victor’s hair and Minako would still be looking for answers in her own library before she could send him any kind of answers.

“Oi! Yuuri!” Yuuko and Takeshi were already settled and had made a place for him nest to their own stall “You brought little Victor? Are…he isn’t little anymore!”

Yuuko was holding the smiling baby, wide eyed in surprise while her botanist friend started to place his produce on the stall, leaving the bouquet at the back. Yuuko wasn’t the first one to tell him about Victor’s size and that was starting to strike his nerves.

“You think so? But you guys told me they grow a lot during the first months…”

“Not this much!” the girl laughed, rocking Victor playfully “He already is the size my daughters were at three months! Oi, why don’t you take the little hat off? The sun will soon make him sweat if you don’t”

Yuuri turned his head violently at his friend who was already starting to remove the knit cap, part of the gift basket the Nishigori’s had given him for Victor’s arrival. The botanist snatched the infant away and placed him over a bunch of pillows he had brought.

“Um…Victor’s nose was a little cold when we got out of home, so I’ll leave it on for a while” Yuuri mumbled. He really didn’t wanted Victor’s flowers getting noticed until he got to know more about them.

Yuuko pointed how he still didn’t seemed to have noticeable bags under his eyes and how his movements weren’t sloppy and tired like her husband and hers one week after the triplet’s arrival. Yuuri gave credit to the fact he was only taking care of a single child and how said child seemed to enjoy night time sleeping instead of napping through the day. The Nishigoris would even offer him a baby-carrier which only needed a small modification for keeping a single baby instead of three and was way safer than just knotting a scarf around him.

Morning passed slowly and lazily in between chats, some cries and a couple of ambrosia bottles for Victor. Yuuri finally understood those ‘mom talks’ he had seen some of his friends did and how he could actually got some useful tips out of them.

The actual crowd of shoppers came around at the same time the triplets arrived from school, ready to coo Victor in attention and pampers instead of paying attention to the lunch their parents were uselessly trying for them to eat. Yuuri and the Nishigoris had improvised a little bed on the botanist’s cart for the infant to lie comfortably.

“Yuuri, why isn’t Victor drinking milk? Is that soup in his bottle?” Lutz and Loop asked while their sister fed the silver-haired baby.

“Well, it’s not soup. It’s some ambrosia mixed with water” Yuuri picked Victor up to make him burp while answering the triplets “I tried to make him drink milk but he wouldn’t accept it so I gave a try to what I fed him as a plant”

“Is that why he has flowers in his hair?” pointed Axel

Yuuri felt his eyelids lift up in surprise before he turned his head to realize the knit cap had fallen off Victor’s head, revealing the blossoms which were quite contrasting against the color neutrality of his hair.

“Oh, that’s right” Yuuko acknowledged, softly caressing the baby’s head “But wouldn’t it be risky to put flowers on him? He could have allergies”

The botanist was about to answer when the crowd suddenly arose in mutters and ‘JJ! JJ!’ cheers while clearing the narrow streets going through the stalls, a clear sign that the crown prince was on his tour though the market.

Yuuri rushed to put the cap back and calm Victor’s upcoming cries caused by the loudness of the crowd before placing him on the pillows anew. The prince was definitely coming at his stall.

“Ah, my good mister Katsuki!” the prince’s voice took the poor botanist by surprise “You have the bouquet for my dearest Isabella ready, I hope!”

After he adjusted his glasses in an attempt to ease his breathing, Yuuri looked for the blue and fluffy bouquet he had placed somewhere near his watermelons. He had made his best in order to make it look presentable enough with a pretty clay pot he had bought with the money the prince himself had given him as well as making a little trick to make them look a bit brighter.

“I hope this bouquet will be good, Your Majesty” he presented his creation with a respectful bow.

“Ha! If we didn’t already have a gardener at the Palace, I would totally hire you!” the royal cheered. He was admiring the bouquet when he noticed the baby lying behind the botanist “Oh, who’s that little one?”

Yuuri felt himself flinch anew but Victor wasn’t a plant he could easily cover up anymore, something even more unlikely when Victor started to cry loudly the moment the Prince leaned to have a closer look at the infant.

“Shhh, Victor, shhh” the botanist rocked the baby slowly “Oh, he’s a kid I’m minding for a family friend” he lied amongst the baby cries.

One of the reasons Prince Jean was so famous was his talent for kids, so Yuuri didn’t oppose when he smiled widely and reached a hand in attempt to caress the baby’s chubby cheeks.

That, of course, before Victor considered that guy was too close for his own comfort and decided to hit the royal’s chin.

Not even the memories of childhood fevers making him see visions in bed nor the awful summer sun back in his hometown heating his skin to the point he thought he was melting could even compare to the warmth he felt out of pure embarrassment burning his cheeks as if directly exposed to Minako-sensei’s luminous magic.

“You… your Majesty! I’m terribly sorry! Please forgive me! I’m so sorry!” his brain was melting in a try to apologize to the prince while he felt shocked glances coming his way not only from the royal guards but the surrounding stalls and people “He’s not usually like that, your Majesty! He’s a good kid!”

Despite looking clearly displeased by Victor’s doing, the prince let out a laugh and a flash of his white perfect teeth “Worry not, mister Katsuki. I wouldn’t be able to hold a grudge against such a cute baby!” he picked the flower pot with perfect princely manners and seemed ready to go “I should thank you anew for the gift for my Lady Isabella! See you then!”

As his retinue and their surrounding crew faded in the market streets, Yuuri felt the air coming back to his lungs. At the moment, he could have sworn not even his best and juiciest watermelons could resemble the shade of red painting his face.

“Victor…” he breathed in while getting the baby closer to be face to face “WHAT IN THE WORLD WAS THAT! We could have gotten into serious trouble! What would we do if he was in a bad mood? I could’ve been thrown into jail! Who would take care of you?”

While he was supposedly looking into Victor’s eyes, he didn’t realize how blinded by fear he still was until the baby’s beautiful blue orbs started to leak. As they slid on his cheeks, Yuuri felt a tight knot on his chest.

“Oh…no, no, no. Victor, Victor” Yuuri hushed while gently holding the silver head and placing soft kisses on the wet cheeks “I’m sorry, sweetie, I really am. I was scared for you, Victor. Sorry sweetie”

Minutes of kisses and rocking after, all that was left of the tantrum were hiccups on Victor’s side and a bad memory on Yuuri’s. The baby was rubbing his wet cheeks on his caretaker’s working apron, no sleepiness in his gestures but a need for affection.

Yuuko grinned wryly from her stall.

“Congrats” she patted her friend’s shoulder without drawing her smile away.

“Eh? What for?” inquired Yuuri curiously, still gently rubbing circles on Victor’s back

The young woman only widened her smile, reached Victor’s forehead and brushed away a fugitive strand “You’ve officially become a parent!”

That phrase got stuck in Yuuri’s head like roots in the earth of his garden even after picking his stall and leftover produce and was on his way home.

A parent? He really didn’t think of himself as a parent to the little baby sleepily slurping his own thumb he was holding in his arms. Maybe it would be a different feeling if he had found Victor at the gate of his house with a note from an anonymous struggling mother or if a woman had come telling him Victor was his son (theory that was completely unreasonable given that he was a virgin).

Things like that would actually made him think of what he was doing as actions out of a parental impulse in him. But something deep inside of his mind and his chest told him the instincts which moved him to protect Victor, to take care of him, to make him smile and to be happy if Victor was happy weren’t exactly pushed by his parental instincts.

He couldn’t deny there was a strong bond between him, something unbreakable he couldn’t even get to describe with words and he could feel the syllables desperately trying to build in his throat in moments like that, when he was watching Victor sleeping next to him in his crib.

Victor’s little tummy went up and down softly following the rhythm of his breathing, surrounded by a silver frame mad of his own hair decorated with the little flowers blossoming from his head.

When they arrived from the market and Victor was finally free from the cap, Yuuri realized a set of petals from a different color showing off Victor’s head. They were an opaque shade of blue, really different from the one coloring his eyes, and the petals ended in sharp lines rather than the soft curvy edges of the others.

Sadness. Victor had bloomed sadness when he realized Yuuri was mad at him.

“Oh, sweetie…” he muttered softly while placing a small peck on the baby’s cheek “I’m sorry you met something like this so soon. I’ll be better than this for you, I promise”

As if Victor was listening to him, he slid his little chubby hand to reach Yuuri’s and held his index tightly. The botanist smiled faintly and smuggled his body closer to the edge so Victor and he would sleep close by during the night.

The crickets and fireflies in the garden made their job to lull them while Vicchan looked over them from a corner as if he didn’t want no one to disturb such warm scene.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay!!!  
> I had my high school last semester finals and I seriously needed to study. I seriously want to dedicate more time to this fic and now I'll be having that time during summer before going to Uni.  
> Thank you for your patience with me and please stick around!!  
> See you guys soon *blows a kiss*


	4. The Bouquet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri's birthday is coming up and Victor asks for help to his friends not only on understanding what is a birthday but how to get a proper gift.  
> In the meantime, it's possible that Yuuri discovers another little mystery about the magical flower-baby.

_Given that the book which allowed his birth, does not give any clarifications on matters any other than the process of creation, I have decided to write down all the events that happen when a_ Loquentium argentum _turns to develop into a human-looking baby._

  * _Nourishment:_



_At the beginning, and showing no signs of any kind of abnormality at the first look, it’s normal to be fooled into thinking nourishment should be the same as for a normal infant, but in Victor’s specific case, I had been feeding him with the recommended ambrosia_ Luca Crispino’s Advanced Guide to the Botanical Magic _(1937 edition) states it’s the ideal for the_ Loquentium argentum, _thus after his transformation, I made the initial mistake of trying to force him to drink milk before realizing he would only accept the nourishment if it was made of a mix of milk and the ambrosia._

_If used one of the substitutes instead of the suggested ambrosia (fairy honey, dragon’s blood, precious-stone elixir, etc) then your ‘nourishment mix’ should be composed of milk and your magical component of choice._

_Tip: If the component is complicate to get, I would recommend to get a good loot of it as if talking about diapers, because as any other baby, the amount of nourishment demanded is exactly the same._

  * _Head flowers:_



_These, I found a little after Victor’s transformation, are more than just a mere remembering of his botanical condition but a physical manifestation of his feelings. They only bloom when a very specific emotion is experienced and they have a quite specific color code one can easily relate to the emotion without the need for words or a direct communication._

_These flowers bloom directly out of the scalp as if they were another strand of hair with the particularity of its characteristic thickness, buds bloom instantly and are quite sensitive to the touch as well as are cause of tickles._

_Buds can be easily removed once they dry, it’s only a matter of softly pulling, there is no need to cut it with nails so the process is painless._

_Note: up to this day, I haven’t done any efforts to pull the buds when they are still fresh. I’m afraid doing it could hurt Victor._

 

  * _Growth spurts:_



_These occur almost daily and people with little to no experience can get easily confused by thinking they are normal on ‘newborn babies’. After making some comparisons on the records between Victor’s and a plant I had grown around the same date, I realized his growing is similar to those of plants so I have assumed his aging process will be similar as well, with a constant growth until it gets stuck on a constant age for a while before deterioration starts._

_Note: I haven’t found a reliable method to calculate the age he actually is right now, all I get are the suppositions coming from one of my friends and former witch…_

Victor started to cry in his crib, alerting Yuuri and making his pen stop on its track right away. He stood violently to cross to the other room to cradle Victor in his arms tightly. One of his hand checked the baby’s lower body part in the search for humidity indicating an accident of any kind. The fibers of the clothes were as dry as possible so he slid his hand to Victor’s tummy.

Something like bubbles tingled beneath his fingers.

“Shh, shh, I’m here” he mumbled softly in Victor’s ear “It’s ok, little one. Hungry?”

Gently patting the baby’s back, he made his way down the stairs to the kitchen. Vicchan’s huge orbs suddenly flashed open the moment he turned the lights on to search for the bottles. The little owl made a small flight to watch the baby closer, but the latter’s cries made him go back to his little corner, sadness in his big round eyes.

“Oh, Vicchan” Yuuri sighed “It’s not that he doesn’t like you, it’s just that he’s small and gets scared”

His explanations only made Vicchan whine and gave Yuuri a tight knot in his chest.

While Victor was eating almost desperately out of the bottle, Yuuri absently read some wrinkled newspapers placed under some of Victor’s clean clothing awaiting to be folded and kept in his drawer. _The First Military Recruitment Tour Begins! Fight for your country, fight for your future!_ the title read in large letters with a whole article detailing the

The botanist sighed heavily and his head denied softly. It had only been two months since the now King Jean-Jacques had called wizards and magicians to the royal palace to measure if their abilities could be useful in war and only a week since he had seen a large troupe of youngsters at the market desperately trying to get signed up for the military  at a stall not so far from his own. To think in a few months most of them could be dead was too much for the poor botanist.

Vicchan seemed to sense his despair and flew low again to nibble his ear the way he did whenever his human was sad but the owl’s track was abruptly changed when Victor cried at the sight of him, letting the bottle out of his mouth.

“Shh, shh, shh. Here you go” Yuuri calmly placed the bottle back into the baby’s mouth “Vicchan, we really need to fix this” the wizard appointed at his owl.

Yuuri’s eyes wandered low to the clothes waiting on the table and got fixed on a baby shirt his mother had sent when she knew all the story through Minako. It was still a little too big for Victor but as a pajama it was pretty useful, just a large, plain blue garment with the drawing of a soft brown poodle in the center.

The wizard heard a ‘click’ in his head.

He wasn’t that good with animal transformation, only as good as any other of his former classmates at Minako’s academy whenever exams showed up, but the worst thing that could happen was that Vicchan remained his usual look after the spell.

“Little one, I’m going to cover your eyes for a minute, ok?” he mumbled, doing without any other advice “Vicchan, come here”

The little owl landed softly on the spot his human had pointed with his chin, over the blue baby shirt. Yuuri closed his eyes tightly and focused on the image of Vicchan he knew and the one he wanted to achieve, murmuring words in the language of magic.

A gentle bark made his eyes open anew. Standing in front of him was a fluffy, cute and small puppy, the exact image of the drawing on the shirt.

“Victor, look at this” he muttered gently while uncovering the baby’s eyes and aiding him to sit on his lap.

Victor’s eyes opened so wide it seemed they were going to pop out, making a new flower bloom in a bright purple, before he exploited into loud laughter and longed his chubby arms to the doggy before him. Surprised at first, the puppy firstly approached with the fear of scaring the infant anew so he sniffed Victor’s fingertips but as soon as the little one started to chuckle at the tickling sensation, Vicchan threw himself into licking the chubby, rosy cheeks.

Yuuri’s heart clutched in a pleasant way while Victor and Vicchan played on the ground while he folded the baby’s clothes. Now he really wished he had a camera, but those were things were seriously expensive and he better invested the money he got from the market and his spare medical appointments into more necessary things, like diapers and milk.

The only 'luxuries' in his and Victor's home were a radio, adored by Vicctor whenever it played music, and an old yellow phone attached to his kitchen’s wall and was mostly used either to give an occasional call to his parents. That, of course, when his friend Phichit didn’t decide to use the line for four hours straight.

Speaking of which, he had promised (more like warned) him, to give him a call in a few days.

Phichit was an air wizard, able to control from the smallest breeze to save whole towns from tornadoes but he employed himself mostly into the meteorology field. Faithful to the power flowing in his veins, he didn’t settled in a single place for too long.

A deep yawn coming from Victor’s mouth brought the botanist back to earth. When he lowered his gaze to the place he had left him and Vicchan playing only to find the puppy was willing to serve as a pillow for the infant. Man, at this rate, he didn’t know if he would be able to hold himself from buying that camera.

Even when he tried to make Vicchan to go to sleep back in the kitchen, both puppy and baby started to whine to sleep together in the crib, without him being able to deny anything to those two.

He decided to stay a little more on his desk, a light glimmer helping his writing while not waking up the two little cuties at his back.

The ink however, got dried on his pen tip.

What he had written was everything he actually knew so far if he stayed only on the objective side of things. Victor was still very little to experiment with his own quirkiness, to communicate the sensations perceived in a different way if he did nor how he felt about being different than the people around him.

Yuuri pressed his temples and let out a sigh. He felt a little guilty of thinking of Victor as something to be studied and analyzed as if he were in a laboratory. Ugh, maybe he needed to clear his mind with the help of the pillow.

Before Morpheus’ embrace fogged his mind, Yuuri made a mental note on buying dog food the next day.

 

* * *

 

Victor’s first memory, or at least the farthest it could go, was when Yuuri’s birthday was arriving.

He was barely able to walk and most of his perspective was, way down below, to the point where Yuuri’s legs were a common sight. Those legs had become his main source of support given how much he tended to stumble with his own hair when he tried to stand up by himself by lying on the close by pots from the greenhouse.

Yuuri would stop everything he was working on to ease his pain tears, coo him and give him little kisses until he was laughing again.

He liked to practice when Yuuri was close because he knew he would have someone around to take care of him if he got hurt. But whenever he achieved to stand for a while without Yuuri’s help, Yuuri would smile in a very special way.

“Vitya, come here. I’ll make you a pretty braid, yes?” Yuuri picked him from the garden’s floor and sat him on his lap. Lately Yuuri had been calling him that way since a woman with a tight hair bun had visited their stall (Miss Lilia Yuuri had called her), she had given him a little dog plush as a gift and hat a chat with Yuuri.

Yuuri’s fingers were always really gentle on his hair, barely brushing his fingers on the blossoms spread between the strands yet he still managed to cause Victor tickles, some of his flowers had loosen up during bath time and had ended up on the bottom of the tub. Yuuri had neatly kept them inside a box and would let him play with them.

“Uui!” Victor rushed his little legs onto Yuuri’s and hugged him tight “Yuui!”

“Vitya! Did you walk all over here?” he asked in amused voice, leaving one of his medicine plants aside to rise him in the air happily and place a loud kiss on his cheek “Great job, sweetie! Oh, someone’s at the door…”

Yuko, the mom of the girls who played with him when Yuuri and him were at that small table with a lot of people, appeared when Yuuri opened. She was holding a really big and smelly round pillow. Just like the ones she gave to the people at her own small table.

“Yuuko-chan! Come in” Yuuri let her into the house and let him down on the floor with Vicchan “Is everything ok? Do you need anything?”

“I do actually. One of our cows is sick, the doctor came in the morning and told us to give her this” even though Yuuri and the woman were talking at the table and he couldn’t see, he knew she wasn’t talking with a smile like she did at her table in the big place “but we don’t have the money. Do you think you could make it for us? I brought the cheese as a guarantee that we’ll pay you next Monday!”

Vicchan licked his cheek and pushed a ball to play with him. Yuuri had said something back to the woman and both were at the kitchen. When he did that, he knew that unless he started to cry, Yuuri wasn’t going to come and play with him.

“So you’re sending the triplets to a private school? But I thought they were good at the public one?” he could hear Yuuri’s voice while fetching the ball and then sending it to Vicchan again.

“Oh, they were. But many of the teachers have already been requested for the military, so they have only like two classes a day now. It’s not going to be cheap but I’m really against leaving my kids without classes just because that brat wants to play ‘boom boom’ with the North!”

Vicchan pushed the ball so hard it ended in the kitchen exactly when Yuuri was laughing, but he wasn’t laughing happy.

“I’ve been thinking sort of the same. I don’t have as much money as Nishigori and you, so I think I’ll have to homeschool Vitya here”

Victor popped at the hearing of his name and switched his attention from the ball to Yuuri’s legs. ‘Uui!’ he called and raised his arms until he could see his Yuuri’s eyes high in the air. His small windows were white like when it was cold in the mornings.

The woman laughed and spoke again “I’m sorry I put those worries in your mind. Especially with your birthday coming in… What are you going to do by the way? Is your family coming over?”

“They are!” now Yuuri was smiling…and was passing him down to the woman’s arms “It has been five years since I have spent my birthday with them and now they’ll also come to meet Victor! By the way, your medicine is ready!”

After the woman was gone from the house carrying a bottle like the ones Yuuri gave him along with soft food, he returned happily to Yuuri’s side at the room full of plants.

That was his favorite part of the day: when Yuuri would go to the room or to the outside because then he could greet his friends.

“Aah!” he greeted the small pots full of Mints and Basils next to the door. They all greeted him back with cheer and told him to go to the opposite pot for something to ease that little bruise next to his knee, the Arnica sprouts skipped the formalities and told him to pull some leaves to heal.

 _You’ll get infected child! And if you do, then Yuuri won’t come to tend us!_ they all scolded him. Victor obeyed while pulling some of the tender leaves and pat them on his knees.

 _Only you could get hurt while walking!_ the flowers on the top shelves, the ones Yuuri said were the most delicate ones, chanted with mockery. _Typical of someone with such petty blooms!_ those were the Golden Orchids for sure, always feeling as if they were the prettiest weed in the field. He suck his tongue out at them.

 Luckily the old Grandpa Eucalypt dropped some of his withered leaves at them, infuriating the delicate blooms, only used to the best fertilizers and not the dry laundry of others. _Girls please behave,_ the old tree muttered slowly, _and you kiddo, do not worry about your flowers. They look pretty on your silver leaves._

 _Oh, yes they do!_ that one was the Jade Vine known between the greenhouse’s plants as the Jade Mama. _I bet you could even give them to Yuuri on his birthday!_

“Ung?” Victor questioned at the Jade Mama, meaning ‘what is a birthday?’.

 _Oh, it’s when the humans age another year,_ Grandpa Eucalypt’s long and guttural voice pointed. _It means another age in their lives, which is something really important for them so they make a big celebration._

Oh, Victor had seen celebrations sometimes! A lot of people gathered with smiles, hard food and loud lullabies, not like the one Yuuri used to sing him at the crib. Did that mean Yuuri was also going to gather with people and sing loud lullabies? And why was Jade Mama saying he should give him flowers?

 _When it’s a human’s birthday, the others give them things they like_ , Jade Mama explained, _And I have seen that sometimes humans gift each other with flowers._

“Vitya, are you talking with the plants again?” Yuuri asked with a smile, he had water on his forehead underneath that hay plate he liked to put on his head “That’s really good, but we better put a hat on you too if we don’t want you to get all red like last time”

 _Right! Last time Yuuri plucked parts of me because you were looking like a Carnation,_ the Aloe pointed out while showing a chopped arm as Yuuri was placing a fiber plate on his own silver head.

“Better, right?” Yuuri gave him a kiss on his cheek and he felt a flower popping between his hair. Yuuri’s kisses made him happy “What did your friends told you Vitya?”

“Uui bai ai! Ito oe!” _Yuuri’s birthday! Victor wants to give you flowers!_ he had tried to say. Neither his friends at the greenhouse could figure out why he couldn’t make the words sound like Yuuri did yet; maybe it was fully a humans’ thing?

Yuuri on the other hand was smiling and nodding at his words. “Really? That’s awesome, Vitya!”

Oh! That meant Yuuri did want flowers for his birthday! But he still didn’t know what kind.

As Yuuri was still working taking out some of those evil little animals who sometimes ate his friends, he sat again under Grandpa Eucalypt. If there was someone who could help him into finding something ideal to give to Yuuri was definitely him.

 _Well, the idea of giving him one of your flowers is quite nice, kiddo. But I haven’t seen any of them actually fall off your head?_ Grandpa Eucalypt mumbled in thoughtful voice.

He had, as he told the Grandpa, shed a few flowers away while Yuuri cleaned him during the afternoons in that large water pot inside the house. Most of them were a week old or so when they fell. Yuuri would collect them from the water and put them inside a small wooden box he was always free to open and see his former blooms and play with them if he wanted. But there was not that much of fun since they couldn’t talk and they weren’t pretty enough to give to Yuuri.

 _Well you can certainly not pull out one of the girls._ Victor chuckled at the ridiculous idea and at the hysteric screeches of the Orchids and Roses on top of his own head.

Yet, it was them who gave him an idea.

 

* * *

 

Victor liked this woman whose face was round, fresh and pretty like a sunflower.

She had come the next morning, smelling of just-harvested crops and making him smile because she smiled. She and Yuuri hugged each other tightly before she fixed her eyes on him, raised him high in the air and coo him the way the his playmates would do.

“Oh look at you! You must be Victor right?” he laughed when she rubbed her nose against his “Yuuri definitely forgot to tell me you were so cute! We brought gifts for you too, you wanna see them?”

“He’s as chubby as you were as a baby!” this one was a man, he also had a round face and his smile was so wide his eyes would disappear behind it. He even had hair similar to his! Victor reached it but it wasn’t long “Oh… and I see just as playful!”

“Ara, his eyes are like plates” another woman appeared. She was younger than the one with the round face and looked like Yuuri when he didn’t sleep but he liked her hair: it would rise up behind her head like a sun “I think I’ll get depressed he’s prettier than me”

A little afterwards, some knocks at the door, and Lutz, Loop and Axel came in singing that loud song he had heard in other celebrations, behind them were the gentle Yuko woman and the man with the large nose holding a pretty box with a bow.

Yuuri had made place for a large table at the garden for breakfast. Yuuri’s Mom and Dad (that’s how he called them) had brought what they called a ‘cake’, a large tower the size of a medium pot decorated with little roses that could be easily sliced placed over something white.

“Vitya, you want to try?” Yuuri asked, placing a spoon of hard food in front of his nose.

Lately he had been giving him more hard food with his bottles of warm white water, but most of them looked like the fruit when they fell from the trees but, contrary to them, they actually smelled good. But the thing in front of him looked as if he had hardened one of his bottles.

“Come on, I promise you its tasty!” he opened his mouth and he had to blink at the intensity of the flavor.

The hard food Yuuri gave him sometimes tasted really sweet and the Berries at the crop field in the front sometimes allowed him to take their fruit so Yuuri could cook them. But this was a completely new kind of sweet, intense, strong and tickled his mouth in a pleasant way.

“Aaah!” he laughed, making the adults laugh too.

Yuuri and the others were eating something from deep plates that smelled good but Yuuri didn’t offered him. _I promise you’ll try it when you’re a bit older, yes?,_ he had told him.

While they were talking at the table, Victor asked to go down to the ground to play with Vicchan. Now it was time to get his gift for Yuuri.

“So, have you and little Vicchan been good? I still have some clothes left if you want them for him” Okaa-san appointed while serving his bowl with another ration of katsudon “I see he really grows fast as you said!”

“Oh, that would be helpful. Thank you Okaa-san!”

He had been a bit nervous on his parents meeting Victor despite what they had said about him on the letters they had exchanged during the past three months: being eager and excited after Minako herself had explained them how the little baby had come into Yuuri’s life; even Mari had written she’d buy a toy or something for Victor when they came to visit which was arguably a loving detail coming from her.

“By the way, Yuuri,” Mari was rapidly tapping her fingers on the table while talking, possibly an effect on the lack of her cigarettes “what’s with those flowers on his head? Do you put them or he picks them?”

Yuuri felt the pork cutlet stuck harshly on his throat at the question.

He had been so focused on the preparations for the visit of his parents and her sister he had forgotten to put on the little hat he used to hide the little blooms. On her letters, Minako had written on how she still couldn’t find absolutely anything on the ‘exception’ that was Victor even though she had flipped her personal library upside down and now was waiting for answers of her fellow wizards and witches so Yuuri wasn’t still very sure on presenting all of Victor’s quirks.

“Oh, I remember watching them once when we were at the market” Yuuko was half talking, half having to control her triplets from fighting over one of the cake’s cherries “It was weird because I tried to remove them but they wouldn’t get off…”

Yuuri felt his own eyelids lift up in terror and with a screech of the chair he was sitting on, he rushed looking for Victor, promptly ignoring the shocked glances from his family and friends.

His first guess was to go to the greenhouse, which had its door connecting to the main house always open in case someone needed urgent medicine.

Inside his chest there was a sudden mix of relief and shock when he found Victor underneath the eucalypt tree, sitting next to Vicchan and pulling a soft pink flower off the strands of his silver hair and placing it along another bunch of them into a bouquet.

Victor seemed to sense his presence, or maybe he did by his huffs, so he turned his blue orbs at him, squinted by the smile he held on his face.

“Uui! Aai eei!” if his ears weren’t tricking him, Victor was definitely saying ‘happy birthday’ to him and offering him the bouquet happily. Victor was not only making him a gift but giving him a part of him.

Yuuri’s eyes flooded in tears while he laid kisses all over Victor’s cheeks and nose, making the baby laugh. His instincts soon kicked in again and he started to look on Victor’s hair in case there was damage but all he saw was the flowers he had grown during the previous week. Yet he had just seen him puck them off as easily as if he was doing so like a child would do with any kind of flower.

Victor’s chubby arms around his face made him push his worries away and keep enjoying the moment.

 

* * *

 

That night, while his parents were sleeping on his own bedroom, Mari snuggling on his living room couch and Vitya in his re-located crib, Yuuri had taken his notebook down with him and had made a small addition on the section he had devoted on the study of Victor’s flowers and their behavior.

  * _Update on flowers: They will normally stay attached to the hair in a standard time of no more than ten days before they wither and fall off naturally and easily. The buds however tend to stay attached if, without consent, are tried to pull off._



_So far, I have noticed only Victor himself is able to, it seems, pull them without inflicting any kind of injury on himself._

_Note: the case I am speaking of here, also presented the particularity that the blossoms he pulled are of a color he hadn’t presented up to this moment and, given that I wasn’t present when they came out, I do not know what kind of emotion they represent nor if these are the only ones that can be plucked without consequences._

“Uui…”

Yuuri heard a soft voice calling him from behind. Victor was standing wobbly and sleepily on the verge of his crib, trying to reach at him with his little hands. The botanist had come to understand the difference between ‘rock me’ and ‘sleep with me’ signals the baby made, and this was one of the latter case.

He picked him off the crib and went to lay on his _futon,_ making sure the baby was comfortable enough and had space to move during the night though it was more usual he would end up cuddling against Yuuri’s chest.

Like he did that night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wanna kill me for not updating in a thousand years, I'll respect it.  
> Sorry for taking so long in posting but real life decided to kick my ass this last month and I've had a hard time finding a little space to write.  
> But, do not fear! It's likely that I'll have more time from now on.  
> Thanks for reading and for being patient with me <3!!  
> *bows*


	5. The Hurt Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri's best friend comes to visit for his birthday, revealing Victor's jealousy for the very first time and how dear the botanist is to him.  
> To the point where he is willing to let go one of his most intimate and powerful secrets when the situation demands it.

“An kiyu!”

Yuuri felt his cheeks get pink and his mouth stretch into a wide smile at the sight of Vitya laughing and talking with his plant friends. If he knew how to interpret things, he would say Victor was thanking them though he didn’t know why.

“Does he usually do that?” Mari asked while plucking weeds next to him, pointing at Victor with her chin

“Oh, he does” he replied happily while doing the same as his sister “Minako used to say plants are interconnected in various ways and we are not that prone to perceiver them, but I think since Victor used to be in a pot like they did he still has the ability to communicate with them”

Both siblings turned to see the baby anew when the latter started to chuckle with the Jade Vines hanging from a low shelf.

“And do you think they all understand that babbling?” now it was Mari who was chuckling

All of the weeds freshly removed from the pots ended in a wide container that in normal conditions, Yuuri would lay under the sun and let them turn into the compost he would use during the following week. But given that his sister was there, he had asked (more like bribed with some fresh sesame cookies) to accelerate the process with her own magic.

Contrary to her little brother, Mari’s power didn’t consist into help the growth of plants or even making them bloom out of nowhere. Instead, hers could go from decelerate the growth to wither and even rot, something really useful back at Hasetsu where besides from the normal income they could get a little extra from selling fertilizers.

“Ara, don’t get your nose close little one” Yuuri moved Victor’s little body towards his own so to get him far from the container Mari was moving her hands over.

“We don’t want those pretty flowers the color of those” Mari agreed while referring to the already thick mixture in front of her before grinning widely “Yuuri will get sad if he doesn’t get more bouquets”

Victor’s eyes opened widely in surprise before her words, patting the flowers on his head and pulling off one he reached at Yuuri.

“Eh? Thanks Vitya, but I’d really like if you kept your flowers on your head little one” he placed a kiss on his cheek while keeping the flower inside one of the pockets of his apron “My bouquet is still good, don’t worry”

Victor had been moving around in a more free way, his small walks had turned more fluid and gotten longer, his speaking diction was slightly better, Yuuri had a slightly more difficult time picking him up and he was a bit heavier on his lap which ended by confirming Yuuri’s suspicions: Victor had grown a little bit more overnight.

According to Yuuko’s words during his birthday’s eve, Victor must have been around a year old already if he was aging normally even though there had only been three months ever since his appearance.

At the thought of his friend, Yuuri’s fingers started to absently caress Victor’s head.

Poor Yuuko had been terribly embarrassed and started to mumble unending apologies at him and the baby after Yuuri had explained his friends and family about the small mystery of Victor’s flowers and similar manifestations probably derived from his previous botanical conditions. He shared the knowledge he had started to record down on his small journal and updated them in every small discovering Minako had told him about as well.

“On, Yuui, on!” Victor and his pulling legs brought him back to reality with the baby wanting to get down from his lap again

“Sorry, sorry, here you go. Be careful not to pull leaves or flowers, yes?” he doubted Victor had heard him as he made his way happily out to the door leading to the open garden. There was no reason to be scared though, his father was reading under the sun and could keep an eye on him.

“Darlings?” both siblings turned their heads in a perfect coordination at the calling of their mother standing at the door’s frame “Oh, there is a friend of yours at the door it seems!”

Yuuri promptly shook the dirt off his working apron and took off his gloves. He wasn’t expecting visitors aside from his family…

“Yuuri!”

Laying relaxed against the open garden’s gate, backpack on the shoulder, a wide hat decorated with pins from various faraway places covering his head, holding a small bag with one hand and fondly greeting with another was Yuuri’s best friend.

“Phichit?!”

 

* * *

 

 

“You like it?” Phichit inquired from behind the cake slice Hiroko had given him, bashing away the frosting from the tip of his nose.

“They’re amazing!” Yuuri was amused by the beautiful pair of glasses his friend had given him, they were flexible like a rubber band and toned into a brighter shade of blue than the ones he wore at the moment.

“They are break-proof! Custom made now that you have a baby home!” he placed another of the packages he had brought with him on the table, wrapped in a pretty yellow soft paper “But that’s not the only gift I bought, check this one!”

Ripping the paper off, Yuuri gave way to what seemed to be a pair of black socks and lifted them with a mix of surprise and disappointment but he felt his face trying to hide it behind a smile.

“Uh…thank you Phichit! It’s a really… thoughtful gift…” his mumblings let loose a loud laughter from his friend before he shows them what the apparent ‘socks’ are for. Phichit fits them over his own socks and after a few seconds, they suddenly harden, take the shape of a boot and a thin metal blade grew on the sole.

“Boom!” he said showing off the skate on his foot before his friend’s wide surprised eyes.

“Wow!”

Yuuri felt his eyes glass with tears: his friend had remembered how deeply he had loved the cold winters skating while being under the care and education of Celestino. Yuuri’s skates had broken a while ago and now that he had Victor it was complicated of thinking of getting a new pair.

“I also brought an extra pair for the little bean! They fit into any kind of foot size so they’ll wait until he’s old enough, Guang Hong assured me they will stay effective no matter how long.” he gave a long sip at his drink “By the way, I haven’t seen the kiddo…”

Yuuri’s head tilted in confusion and he realized his friend was right until his thoughts got interrupted by the voice of his father coming from the outside garden.

“Yuuri! Come quick!”

Just as he had done the afternoon of his birthday, Yuuri made the chair screech loudly in his attempt to go as fast as possible towards the voice which he was sure was calling him on Victor.

Toshiya had let his hat get blown in the rush of getting quick to the house and the thick book his son had seen him read had been replaced with a head down Victor.

“What happened?!” Yuuri’s attention got quickly fixed on the infant’s knees and legs with the fear he had fallen in one of his attempts of walking more than his lambs were capable of.

“Yuui bop” Victor mumbled

Yuuri’s eyes went all the way up to meet Victor’s face and he had to suppress a loud gasp.

One could have placed a red apple next to Victor’s right cheek and wouldn’t have seen any kind of difference. His face was so red and swollen one of his little fingers could try to push and it would look he had done so with a muffin, hiding his bright blue eye behind a hill of skin.

“What did you that bop, sweetie?” Yuuri rushed with the baby in his arms to the greenhouse to cure him, sitting him next to the mallow flowers.

Victor patted his head, putting special attention to his flowers, and made his hands simulate the flight of an insect and how he had wanted to ‘shoo’ them away but also on how the ‘bzzz’ had wanted to ‘nom nom’ his flowers so… “Bzzz! Viito bop!” he ended with a pout and pointing the swollen cheek anew.

“A bee tried to eat from your flowers, you tried to make it go away but it stung you” Yuuri translated with little effort. The infant nodded and let out another ‘bzzz bop!’

Phicht laughed loudly behind his friend’s back “Wow! You really are getting in tune with this parenthood thing Yuuri!”

Victor’s blue orbs fixated on the man with skin the color of light wood and the man gazed back at him. The thought of how no one with two eyes on their face could ever think that baby possibly be blood-related to Yuuri, however, he decided to make a small test on the infant.

“I had already told you that you shouldn’t be playing nearby the bees, Vitya” Yuuri was applying a thick lilac paste on the insect bite, alien to the gazing battle between the ones next to him “But if you see there’s one near you, don’t try to shoo them away, you better come back home quickly so they stop bothering you. It’s so red I’m afraid you’ll have an allergic reaction”

“Hey, Yuuri” Phichit wouldn’t let his eyes divert from the baby’s huge gaze. The moment Yuuri turned the head towards him, Phichit gave him a quick peck on the cheek, making the poor botanist turn the color of a peach.

However, the moment his lips made contact with Yuuri’s face, Victor exploded into a loud cry, thick tears slipping on his swollen cheek and longing his arms at Yuuri in a desperate motion. While his friend, confused and still a little shocked, embraced the little one, Phichit laughed without shyness.

“Wow! Plant baby is jealous!” he chuckled “Poor little thing doesn’t want to accept you’re quite on demand back in town. When he grows up reality is going to be harsh on him”

Thanks to Yuuri’s pampers and gentle caresses on his back, Victor was slowly calming down “On demand? Now you’re inventing things” what was on demand was his attention by Victor “Shh, shh. We’ll give you some milk and get some sleep, yes Vitya?”

While his friend was entertained in rocking and feeding the baby, Phichit told him about the people he had had to ask for the address and gave him a whole list of people who had either blushed before Yuuri’s name or even openly declare him as ‘the cute healer at the outskirts’. That leaving aside that kid with hair like ketchup and mustard who had basically fanboyed over his name.

“What I’m saying here is that if you put a little effort, you could give the sapling a mommy or a daddy!” Victor cuddled against Yuuri’s chest and grumbled sleepy “Well, if the sapling wants to let you, of course"

 

* * *

 

 

“Well, you aren’t a brat after all” Phichit mumbled while giving Victor a spoonful of potato and chicken puree the sapling seemed to actually be enjoying “Now hurry up or Yuuri won’t give us dessert”

Victor had all of his hair and flowers pulled into a loose ponytail so he wouldn’t end up eating his own hair instead of the puree but it seemed the baby was more focused in building a small tower with tiny plastic bowls just to knock it down and then build it up again. Phichit had been left to care for the baby since his friend was tending a patient at the studio/healer office and the family was visiting downtown.

“Come ooon…” Phichit complained now that Victor was pouting and turning his face away from the spoon “Look, if you finish this, we’ll get pudding! Don’t you want pudding?”

“No!” Victor slammed the high chair’s little table with enclosed fists, launching the spoonful of puree on Phichit’s face and dropping the frets he was playing with “Viito an Yuui!”

Phichit was seriously reconsidering if not calling the sapling a brat was actually correct as he longed a hand to a bunch of napkins. It seemed evident the child was already asking for his best friend’s attention but he and the patient had already been at the ‘office’ for more than an hour already, though he should have known better when he realized the patient was one of the girls who had blushed violently when he had asked for directions.

“Listen, if you finish the puree, I’ll call Yuuri to give you your dessert” Victor’s eyes were fixated on his at the proposal “Yes?”

The baby seemed to meditate it for a little until he nodded and proclaimed a loud ‘Es!’.

While feeding the sapling the very last spoonful of potato and chicken, the ‘office’s’ door opened to let out Yuuri and a woman dressed in quite expensive clothing, the kind which could only be bought by someone with a good position. Like a merchant or something

“Besides from the medicine, I would also recommend you to add more green-leaf vegetables and drink two cups a day of the tea I gave you as well. With that, I’m sure the pain will cease but it would be good for you to pay another visit in a month or so” Yuuri was guiding the woman to the main door like a gentleman and wasn’t paying attention to the girl’s rosy cheeks “It would also be a good idea to visit the doctor if the ail is still on”

The woman nodded to all of the indications his friend was making along their way to the entrance. She was pretty, with long dark hair, glossy thick lips and a pair of lilac eyes surrounded by long eyelashes. If her dress spoke correctly, she had more than enough money to pay for the services of a doctor downtown instead of those of a healer in the outskirts.

Conclusion: pretty rich girl was totally falling for his best friend who seemed, what a surprise, totally oblivious to it.

But the person who did seem to notice was the pouting sapling sitting in the high chair.

Victor’s eyes were fixed on the woman who was making up more unnecessary health-problem drama than needed just to get another appointment and was even willing to pay more for the service. And the shining of jealousy was pretty evident in those already watery eyes.

“Hey, sapling” the kid turned to see him with a pout “Why don’t we go to Yuuri so you get your dessert?” he started to undo the secure of the high chair and placed the infant on the floor.

Phichit was going to have fun with this.

“Please let me pay you a little more! For the tea!” the girl was quite persistent

“I told you is a supplement, there is no need to” Yuuri was blushing with embarrassment “Take it as a gift for…Ugh!”

Victor had slammed himself against Yuuri’s legs in a sneak attack and hugged them tight. Yuuri immediately lost his professional composure at the sight of the kid and lifted up in arms.

“YUUI! VIITO DESET!”

“You want your dessert? You finished all the puree?” a peck on the cheek “What a good boy!”

The girl wasn’t pink but red in embarrassment “I…I didn’t know you had a kid. He’s pretty… I will be off now, thank you for everything!”

After the girl had picked up the frills of her dress and was far away from the gate, the sapling was happily tapping on the table as Yuuri gave him spoonful after spoonful of banana pudding while chatting with Phichit.

“Miss Crispino is polite because she is a regular customer, that’s all”

“Of course” Phichit was also eating his own portion of dessert while mocking his friend “And I am the rightful heir to the throne. You should really get your head out of the sand from time to time. I doesn’t hurt to date, you know?”

 

* * *

 

 

The house of the botanist was quiet at night.

The Katsuki marriage occupied the only actual bedroom of the house, Mari slept tugged into a futon at her little brother’s studio/office since Phichit’s arrival. The two wizard friends slept soundly on the living room’s floor with Victor’s crib placed in between them with the baby and Vicchan cuddled with each other.

At those silent hours, the building’s soft wood let out gentle creaks and the night winds dancing around outside the house would get tangled with the leaves of the garden’s fruit trees and fill the house with howls which rather than being scary, were soft and similar to distant lullabies to the ears of the inside occupants.

Maybe that’s why the sudden rang of the gate’s hanging bell woke up the entire household.

“Yuuri, there’s a woman and a man outside the garden!” his mother advised them while Victor was crying in his arms, alarmed by the sudden bell ring

“I’ll take the door, mama Katsuki!” Phichit offered while wrapping himself in one of the sheets before rushing to the outside.

The night visitors turned out to be the pretty girl Yuuri had treated days before and a young man who was hanging onto her shoulders as if his life depended on it. It wasn’t until they had finally entered the already-lit house that one could tell they could only be siblings with those softly tanned features and big bright lilac eyes.

“Please help! My brother had an accident!” tears were tracing down long furrows along her cheeks as she spoke “I am so sorry to bother you so late but the doctor’s office was shut down!”

“Sara, I already said I am fine… Ack!” the young man’s words were interrupted when he started to cough, removing his cloak a little, just enough for a wide blood stain to be noticed underneath a ripped shirt.

Yuuri ended up leaving Victor in his mother’s arms and took his patient upstairs with the help of Phichit and his father. Miss Crispino was still very shaken so Hiroko and Mari helped her settle on the living room with a cup of tea as she described how while his brother was making some late deliveries from the Crispino Fabircs and Clothing store they owned as they had given their employees a couple of days off when a military car, with the driver presumably drunk, had crashed against her brother. With lots of effort, he managed to get back to the store and then taken to the doctor’s from there.

“And you say he wasn’t there?” Hiroko inquired with quite a confused expression. Victor was still in her arms but he seemed to understand the situation wasn’t the most adequate to start manifesting how little he liked that woman who liked to be around Yuuri too much.

Miss Crispino sobbed into her handkerchief as she denied with her head.

“There was a poster outside his office saying his office is now for rental” she managed to say between hiccups “I asked the other tenants and they said he is now in the military!”

Mother and daughter exchanged glances at the young woman’s words with concern. Victor gazed at the scene around him with wide and curious eyes: he was used to people coming in and out the house for consulting Yuuri but he had never seen such a bustle for one of the ‘patients’ as Yuuri called them.

In that moment, Yuuri was rushing downstairs, forehead full of sweat pearls and concern behind his glasses. Miss Crispino stood up like a spring and approached him at the stair base.

“Is my brother doing well, mister Katsuki?”

“One of his ribs is broken due to the impact. The fracture is not a serious one,” he hurried himself to reassure the young and teary lady “however, the cut on his stomach is quite deep and the bleeding is abundant. I will try to contain it with some stitches and solutions but I am afraid of an infection”

The young woman sobbed in her handkerchief anew. Yuuri compromised himself into putting all of his efforts and knowledge for the sake of Miss Crispino’s brother before rushing to the greenhouse and then to the kitchen.

“Yuui kei?” Yuuri turned to see a sleepy and wobbly-standing Victor as he plucked sages with the intention of mixing it with geranium oil to disinfect and stop the bleeding.

He felt his eyes soften at the baby before holding him and placing a kiss on his cheek, making the baby laugh and bloom a bright yellow flower “I’m okay, sweetie. But the man upstairs isn’t, so we have to help him”

“Jep?” Victor asked, tilting his head. He usually was the one receiving help and the perspective of giving it was new to him.

“Yes, help him. Will you help me help him?”

Victor nodded while Yuuri slowly placed him down on the ground again but before he lost his attention, he started to pat the flower he had just bloomed. He only made that mimic whenever one of his flowers was old and it started to itch the baby’s head; the botanist started to pull it gently before noticing it was still fresh and tried to stop himself right when the flower detached itself.

“Vitya! I’m sorry!” he apologized and started to rub the spot but stopped when he realized the baby was giggling.

“Viito jep! Viito enicin!”

Yuuri didn’t have the time to process the baby’s last words before he disappeared back inside the house.

“Yuuri! Hurry up!” Phichit’s screams broke the confused illusion and his legs brought him straight to the kitchen.

Without losing another second, he mixed all of his ingredients into a solution especially made for Michele Crispino while he disinfected a needle and his hands created a thin and almost invisible thread made of birch sap.

He didn’t notice the yellow bloom getting inside the mix until he was pouring it inside a small vessel.

Anxiety started to creep up his spine under the pressure. Maybe he still had time to make a new mix…

Michele Crispino’s pain screams made him shake his head and rushed back at the room where Phichit and his father, armed with cold wet pads, tried to ease down the young man’s pain. He pulled his sleeves up and prepared himself for a session that would last several hours to the point the night had already transformed into day.

By seven o’clock am, Michele Crispino was almost completely healed and Yuuri was holding his temples with confusion.

Sara Crispino was sitting next to her brother’s laying body muttering calming words as he slowly woke up from the mix of anesthesia and pain that had knocked him down during the hardest parts of the healing which had been the reason the poor botanist was confused.

He had a bad sight, but he was sure of what he had behold during that night.

The exact second he poured the solution at the borders of the deep wound, the blood and living flesh turned into softly tanned skin. By the time he had to actually employ the needle and the sap thread, the wound could have been easily mistaken with that one caused by a pocket knife. He didn’t even have to deal with the usual high fevers which followed that kind of horrible sessions.

No wizard nor witch, no matter how powerful they were, could be powerful enough to heal at that rate. There was no spell in the magical medicine books indicated flesh could be created on open wounds.

“Mister Katsuki!” his concentration was broken when Miss Crispino wrapped him into a tight embrace followed by a loud peck on his cheek. He felt his face warm “Thank you so much for your help! My brother and I owe you so much!”

“Ah… it’s nothing, Miss Crispino” he bowed respectfully but he could tell his cheeks were still pink “It’s me who has to thank you both for entrusting me with your health”

As soon as Michele Crispino was fully awake, his sister asked their driver to pick them at the healer’s house. She was still showing strong signs of thankfulness at Yuuri and basically forcing him to accept a large sum of money neither he nor his family wanted to take in but she managed to smuggle it inside Yuuri’s pocket

“If there is ever anything we can do for you, please don’t doubt on calling us!” that was her farewell as the car started to fade away on the road. Phichit’s glares almost made Yuuri wish she hadn’t said so.

“Yuui!” Victor gave him a hug on his legs.

He hadn’t had a chance to hold him during the entire night. Each of the times he had cried either for a change of diaper or the need of his bottle it had been his mother the one who tended the baby, but Yuuri could hear his cries from the upper floor asking for him.

Victor now seemed content to snuggle again against his chest and seemed oblivious to the questions still floating inside Yuuri’s head.

Hiroko was already in the kitchen eager to prepare an abundant breakfast to celebrate her son’s success while his father, sister and best friend were still congratulating him. With the excuse of tiredness, he retired to his bedroom with an already sleepy baby in his arms, caressing his silver hair.

He stopped his steps when he felt one of Victor’s buds underneath his fingertips.

“Vitya,” the baby’s eyes opened wide when he called his name “did you help me yesterday?”

The baby nodded sleepily, pulled another one of his flowers and offered it to Yuuri.

“Viito enicin…” Victor managed to mumble before snuggling anew.

Yuuri’s tiredness had suddenly ran away from him. He placed the little baby on his own bed given that the crib was still downstairs before making his way to the studio and dedicating a good part of the morning into making an update on his botanic journal.

 

* * *

 

 

“If what you suspect is true, then you must keep a tighter eye on Vicchan” Hiroko muttered with her rarely seen serious face

Yuuri had told them about his new discovery during lunch time, earning a series of strange and confused looks from everyone present until he was able to fully explain what he had seen during the healing session and how the only different had been Victor’s ‘help’ flower. He wasn’t completely sure, but maybe as Victor grew up, he was already starting to be conscious about his nature and what he could do.

“Let’s hope that the Crispino guy was knocked down enough to keep his mouth shut” Mari opined, tapping her index on the table. The lack of nicotine was really starting to get her but she wouldn’t dare to smoke when being so close to a baby. “Otherwise he’ll start to brag about your literally magical cures and in the best of cases, your clients will number up. In the worst…”

Silence settled heavily after those words.

Yuuri’s eyes were filled with horror at the thought of all of the bad possibilities which could happen to his little Vitya. People could start to harass him for his flowers, could start to rob them, use him for experimenting and he didn’t even dare to think of the worst case scenario.

They weren’t regular weeds one could grew out of seeds or that grew wild on the side of the road, they were emotions. Victor’s emotions. His experiences and everything he had lived with Yuuri so far. One couldn’t nor shouldn’t take lightly something like that.

“Have you told Minako yet?” his mother questioned. He nodded, receiving a reassuring motherly caress on his shoulder “You’ll just need to be a little bit more careful, darling. Vicchan is in good hands”

The botanist’s eyes traveled to the crib placed only a few feet from where they were sitting. Vitya was sleeping using Vicchan as a pillow.

What kind of magic was the baby actually able to use and at which extent?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally updated on time!!!  
> I'm glad I finally placed more characters into the story, I plan to keep this up as the story progresses. Next will probably be Chris, though not yet. First I need to give Victor a grow spurt...  
> Thank you for reading *bows*


	6. The Growing Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seems like a normal day at the healer's house in the outskirts when possible new family member appears at the gate, leaving Victor wondering what a home is...

According to Yuuri’s calendar, it had been five months since he had had his twenty second birthday. But he had been using a different and more effective method in order to calculate what age was Victor now.

“I’d say about four or five years old?” Yuuko had guessed when he had asked for her opinion. It was very close to his own calculations and quite far from the baby’s actual chronogram which, had it been correct, he would barely be scratching the six months of age.

Weeks ago, Victor would still fit comfortably in his arms and now he had to make an effort to barely pick him up. The baby who could barely stand up and walk with the help of loyal Vicchan by his side could now ran happily thought the house and the gardens around it.

But he wasn’t tall enough to reach the cooking table like he was trying to do at the moment.

“Vitya just staring won’t make it cook faster”

The baby’s glances were directly fixed on the pot and the pan resting on the stove as if his impatience could accelerate the cooking of the rice cakes and small pieces of meat that would be their lunch that day. Yuuri chuckled at the sight of a pouty and wrinkled-forehead Victor.

“Ok, ok” he gave in while offering the baby a small bowl of strawberries he had picked that morning from the front garden “If you stop threatening the poor pot, you can have some fruit”

An immediate effect was made with the offering as the baby’s eyes widened in excitement.

“Toberis!” he cheered while grabbing the two largest. One for him and offered the other one to Yuuri who accepted it with a smile “Toberie fo Yuudi!”

He was growing well according to his own periodical examinations and the ones he had saved up for the downtown doctor to do. Healthy and strong, a kid who liked to play outside in the sun until his cheeks were sprinkled with light freckles and who knew when he needed to be at help either in the crops or at the house.

The only enemies the baby seemed to have were the bees surrounding his precious flowers and the bugs which would leave small red spots on his legs. Yuuri would spray citronella all over Victor whenever the baby would ask to go outside.

“Yuudi! Bid Vichan!” Victor came running back into the house and desperately pointing at the gate “Bid Vichan!”

“Uh, big Vicchan?” he tried to translate earning a vigorous nod from the baby “But, sweetie, Vicchan is here with you”

Child and dog, looked at each other before the first one denied with the same energy as before. Victor repeated his words in a more desperate manner, jumping and pointing to the outside gate. Startled, Yuuri set the fire lower to the pot and pan to accompany Victor and Vicchan.

Lying underneath the shadow of their mango tree, softly whimpering and teary eyed, lied a large poodle, probably thrice the size of Vicchan, if only his fur was a little darker but what shocked Yuuri wasn’t the similarity between both dogs. It was the hurt paw which seemed to be broken.

“Bid Vicchan!” claimed Victor

“Oh dear…!” Yuuri’s words died in his throat as he bent down to get a closer look at the hurt doggie.

It didn’t even move or complained at the attention while Yuuri quietly examined him under Victor’s worried gaze. He didn’t have that much experience with animals, only a couple of horses and the Nishigori’s cows, but the paw had clearly been broken under pressure, probably hit by a car or a farmer’s cart.

He would be okay as long as he had enough cares and pampers, he concluded.

“Vitya, be a dear and bring me two sticks from the pile please, yes?”

“Yes!” the baby ran to and back from the pile of firewood they used for the chimney on cold days.

Carefully, Yuuri set the two sticks on the sides of the fracture he tied with the kitchen towel he had on his cooking apron while Victor patted the dog’s head reassuringly and Vicchan gave him small kisses. The doggie complained a bit when Yuuri picked him up from the ground in his arms. It was quite a teamwork between him carrying the dog and Vitya opening and closing doors all the way to the greenhouse where they set him softly over a working table Victor laboriously extended a cloth over.

“Don’t worry little one, you’ll be good in no time” he pet the doggie behind the ears, before turning to Victor who was staring curiously “Want to help Vitya?”

First thing they did was to gently clean the doggie’s paw with a soapy wet cloth so it wouldn’t be harsh on the injury and then applied a mix of arnica and ulmaria to ease the swelling and external pain. The dog was going through it really calmly and quietly but the botanist was really hesitant on how to proceed as he really didn’t want to hurt him.

“Okay, little one, this may not be tasty but you won’t forgive me if I continue without it” he mumbled while opening a jar he kept in the kitchen as it was slightly more complex than pastes or poultices.

One of the works he was the most proud of were his handmade birch and valerian pills, a powerful sedative mix he carefully kept and only used in really difficult injuries. They were as good as any medical anesthetic and their only bad part was that they were as bitter as deeply biting a grapefruit’s peel.

As expected, at the faintest rose of the pill on the dog’s tongue, made him flinch lazily as the sedatives were starting to take on effect. Against his dog-lover will but griping tightly on his medical one, he forced the pill onto the entering throat. The doggie coughed but the pill remained.

Yuuri turned to Victor and bent down.

“Sweetie, would you be so kind as to bring me one of the clean sheets that are upstairs?” he really wanted to save the strong impression of the healing. Luckily, the kid nodded and ran upstairs as fast as his legs allowed him, allowing the botanist to sigh with relief.

Short after Victor was gone, Yuuri proceeded with the frightening task of setting the bones back into place.

The doggie had only let out a small complaining whimper in such a low volume Yuuri barely listened to it but it was more than enough to bring Victor down and almost tumbling with his long hair on his rush much to Yuuri’s dismay. Luckily, he arrives when the dog was already out of the pain frame, but that didn’t stop Victor from petting him and covering in little kisses.

“Vitod want to hep!” Yuuri lowered his gaze to find Victor’s little fist offering him a small bunch of his flowers possibly plucked out of his own head “Make ti fod doggy pease!

Yuuri nodded and made for the kitchen.

He would normally add some of his own herbs into the tea but the memory of how powerful its power had been in such a difficult time as when he had to treat Mister Crispino was still fresh enough in his mind as to fully trust the colorful tea he made the dog to drink.

Yuuri decided to stay next to the recovering dog, feeding some of the leftover beef from lunch and recycling one of Victor’s old bottles in order to make him drink tea. When the sky darkened and the crickets began to sing, Victor brought his pillow and one of his blankets while Vicchan pulled in the cushion he usually slept on.

Yuuri sighed deeply and pressed his temple.

“Vitya, Vicchan, please go to sleep” he basically begged but the child before him only denied and the pup barked twice

“No! We stay fod hep!” Victor claimed loudly, walking all the way to the corner where Yuuri would pile up sacks full of soil. He quietly extended his blanket and placed his pillow but was soon back next to Yuuri’s side with eyes shining in determination.

“Ugh, okay. But when you feel sleepy, promise me you will go to rest on the corner. Not on the chair” the botanist poor botanist had had enough experiences to know what he was talking about and had his back and neck soreness to prove it.

It was a long night to say the least.

Once the sedatives’ effect was gone, the whimpers began anew and the dog started to lick his wounded paw but the healer soon made him stop as he didn’t want an infection added to the bunch. He applied more paste to ease the pain and Victor sleepily helped him when the fever attacks came at midnight, the kid finally agreed to go to his resting corner.

The botanist stayed awake until the sun bathed the greenhouse in its warm light anew.

 

* * *

 

 

“Vitod wants to stay with doggy!” Victor chirped, followed by two enthusiastic barks from his companions.

It had already been a week since the arrival of the large poodle to the botanist’s house. After the fracture healing session, the dog was sleepy and weakened for the following days until the pain had completely faded away and with the help of Yuuri, Victor and Vicchan he was slowly attempting to walk with short travels to the gardens surrounding the house.

“You want us to keep the doggie?” Yuuri almost chopped his fingertip in the same cube-like shape of the zucchinis he was chopping for lunch

“Yes! And doggy wants to stay!” the kid was jumping in excitement “Makkachin told Vicchan and Vicchan told the fawes and the fawes told Vitod!”

Yuuri blinked when he heard that. Though it wasn’t like he was unused to the conversations would hold with the greenhouse’s inhabitants, it was his first time hearing that name.

“Is Makkachin his name?” the kid nodded with energy “But, sweetie, if he has a name then doesn’t that mean he also has an owner?”

The botanist feared he had said something wrong as Victor’s bright eyes suddenly saddened and one of his hands pet the poodle’s head.

“Makkachin had ouned but was bad ouned” Victor mumbled

Well, that did changed things then. They had been waiting during a week for the owner to show up asking for their pet and Yuuri had even made good use to his day at the market by spreading the word of the wounded dog expecting to find the so said owner. But as a healer and as a human by itself, he didn’t have such a cold heart as to give Makkachin back to a bad person when they could offer him a good home.

Oh, this soft side of his was to be his death for sure some day, thought Yuuri sighing softly.

“Well, then we better find a good cushion for Makkachin to sleep” Victor, Vicchan and Makkachin’s eyes lit up again “If we don’t have a spare one, then we can buy one in town. Yes?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” Victor nodded excitedly, his laughs getting mixed with the happy barks.

 

* * *

 

 

Makkachin turned out to be an excellent companion.

He was a good caretaker to Victor whenever Yuuri needed to go out in quick errands, not only he would play with him but he be careful with not letting him out of the gates, pushing the snacks Yuuri had left for the kid over the table and even sending him to get his nap instead of sleepily waiting for Yuuri.

He was smart, helping at the greenhouse by pulling sacks, digging holes and licking Yuuri’s fingers whenever he got a small cut from his gardening tools. The only little problem after gardening was the dirt on Makkachin’s fur although it also seemed like Victor really enjoyed combing the soft brown curls.

But most importantly, he and Vicchan were inseparable playmates.

Yuuri had to confess he had been a little worried on how his little pup would take in the new family member but time quickly proved his worries to be useless because as soon as Makkachin was good to walk he turned out to be one of those eternal puppies to which age didn’t matter at all. Both dogs would play tag in the gardens, both would fetch the balls and sticks Victor threw for them and both would snore quietly in their little cushion corner wrapped in blankets.

The healer’s house now did seem to host a family home.

“What is a home?” Victor asked Jade Mama “I heard Miss Yuuko to call us that way the other day”

Yuuri was out after he had received a letter from Miss Lilia, assured Victor he would be back before lunch and that he would probably bring a friend with him. But in the meantime, he had a chance to talk to his friends.

_Well, that’s a difficult definition to give_ , the blue vine mumbled thoughtfully.

“It has a lot of words?” Victor could totally understand it was difficult if it had a lot of words because Yuuri was teaching him how to read and large words or many of them were his current worst nightmares.

Grandpa Eucalypt moved his branches, attracting his attention.

_It is difficult to describe it because it means something different for each living bean,_ the wise tree explained with sleepy voice, _For some people it can be a house, a region, a landscape, even a person or so I have heard._

“Do you think Makkachin has found a home here then?”

_Well, he did told us here feels more like home than where he lived before,_ Mama Jade assured while the pots underneath her agreed.

Victor smiled widely, happy for his friend and now family.

But he still had a lot of doubts. What could be his home then? Would it be the house he lived in with Yuuri, Vicchan and Makkachin? Or would it perhaps be the pretty region they lived in with its green sights and the sky full of stars at night? Or… could it be a person?

Vicchan and Makkachin’s barks brought him back to earth.

Both doggies were loudly scratching the front gate with their paws and making efforts to push it open, clear signal that Yuuri was back home. Victor wished he had the key and knew how to use it but whenever the botanist was out he would take the key ring with him. The kid went to set besides his barking friends in front of the dark green wooden gate as the three of them heard the keys turning on the other side and faint laughs.

“…a nice kid, he won’t give you trouble” Yuuri was mumbling as he entered through

“He better not, pig” someone grumbled from the outside.

Victor launched himself at Yuuri, gripping his waist in a tight hug and pressing his cheek on his tummy. He felt work-blistered hands ruffling his hair careful with the flowers and caressing his back.

“I’m back Vitya” much to his discontent, Yuuri separated too quickly from the hug “I brought a friend I would like you to meet”

Another man… more of a boy, entered through the green-painted gate with the look of someone who was pulled out of bed before the sunrise. Victor could have thought differently if he had a less sour expression, because he was pretty with those eyes the color of lettuce, hair like midday sun and a face almost as pretty as Yuuri. But the way he looked at him made him feel like hiding behind Yuuri.

And things just got worse when out of his pouch emerged one of those weird, fluffy, angry and triangle-eared dogs he really didn’t like.

“Vitya, this is Yurio. He’s a student from Miss Lilia’s academy” Yuuri introduced him with a wide smile “and he is staying with us for a few months!”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaanother chapter in time! All of your kudos and comments make me so happy :) please keep leaving them so I have more fuel for my writing dears!!!  
> Thank you for reading *bows*


	7. The Birthday and the Baker

It had been the previous Monday at the market, while Yuuri called Viktor out loud behind his shoulder for him to put on a sweater. It was still summer but the incoming of autumn was evident once the sun started to come down the sky but he had to turn his head back the moment he heard his former teacher over the counter.

Miss Lilia and he chatted lightly while he packed strawberries for the woman.

“Yuuri, my dearest” she leaned in over her former student’s stall at the market while selecting some of the vegetables he had on display “tell me, is little Vitya too much inside your daily schedule?”

The botanist’s eyes met hers, shining in confusion.

“Well, he has needs like every child does” he admitted, absently scratching his neck while stating at Victor play with Yuuko’s triplets “But he is a good kid, so if there is anything I can help you with, take for sure Vitya will not be an obstacle.”

Lilia let out one of her ever-so-rare smiles while sliding a small note to Yuuri over the counter along with the payment for the vegetables.

At night, reading the note once in bed, he found out about Lilia’s prodigy student, the lethal menace his powers could become if they were in the wrong hands, how dangerously interested in him the King was and what she expected of Yuuri.

‘ _I would like you to welcome him inside your house and instruct him on the good uses of medical magic, not only as a way to control his powers, but also as a way of opening his eyes and maybe changing his perspective._

_In the end, no matter how powerful magic is if it’s not put to good use.’_

The following day he entrusted Vitya to Vicchan and Makkachin while he went to the train station to wait for young Plisetsky and take him to his ‘labor practices’ with the healer. He didn’t exactly know how to put ice magic to medical use but the medicine was a very large tree and surely one of its branches could be of the kid’s liking.

“Oi, are you Katsuki?” a rough voice asked, no, demanded on his back.

When he turned his back he had to hold his surprise gasps in his throat when he realized the vessel of such harsh voice was a beautiful young boy and not the punk his imagination had quickly worked up.

“Uh… I am. You are Yuri, am I right?” he extended his hand, already out of shock “Nice to meet you, Yuri”

The teenager simply extended his hand before readjusting his travel bag’s strap over a bony shoulder, clearly impatient. Yuuri sworn he heard a meow in there.

“Lilia told me you had a kid” the boy mumbled absently “He your student too?”

Yuuri felt the blood and warmth climbing all the way to his ears in a blush which was common to whenever someone called Vitya his kid. “Oh, no, no. I take care of him but he’s not my kid, you will meet him when we get home!”

Those emerald green eyes could be nearly as beautiful as Vitya’s sky blue orbs if they weren’t coated in that annoying indifference, Yuuri thought on their way to the outskirts, most of which was full of either awkward silence or awkward one-side conversation until the botanist brought up a subject that actually made the bored pout fade away.

“Lilia-sensei told me a little about your ice magic, and I made a little research on how to apply it to medicine” they were only about two minutes from reaching the green gate.

“Really? Like what?” Yuuri almost stopped on his track when he heard a change in the boy’s voice or basically any other syllable other than ‘hmm hmm’ “I read about it when I was at the library and I actually found something on first aid treatments and burning treatments… I even found one in facial structuration!”

Yuri was happy now that he seemed to have found at least one common point with his now pupil when a popping thought something obliged him to interrupt Yuri’s out loud ideas.

“Oh by the way, Yuri,” green eyes pierced him for daring to interrupt midway a very interesting method on how to use ice as an antiseptic in surgery “I need to tell you that the kid I take care of is really small, and he is used to call me by my first name and it’s really confusing so I wonder if…”

“What? Just spill it old man” the boy claimed, impatient to retake his antiseptic subject. Yuuri regretted not telling him this right after they left the station because the kid really seemed interested in something.

He sighed before drawing an apologetic smile “Can we call you Yurio while you’re staying with us?”

The reaction was basically immediate. A loud ‘Hah!?’ was the first thing to emerge from his listener’s lips before hearing a rambling on how unfair it was, how confusing it would actually be for him, that he wasn’t changing his name just for a kid’s comfort and a lot of other things that made him laugh really hard.

“Ugh!” the boy was basically stomping his feet in a tantrum “He better not interrupt me while I work or I’ll freeze his nose!”

Yuuri was having difficulties while opening the gate while laughing. The keyhole was being shaken by Vicchan’s and Makkachin’s enthusiastic jumps and pushes.

“You don’t need to worry about that. He’s a really nice kid, he won’t give you trouble”

“He better not, pig”

“Yuudi!” a little voice warned a tight hug on his waist. Yuuri tenderly caressed the platinum hair before separating a little bit to show Vitya the newcomer.

“I’m back Vitya, I brought a friend I would like you to meet”

He let the young man to come in the garden. Vitya fixed his curious gaze on his guest and then hid behind his legs the moment the cat Yuuri had heard meow numerous times along the way.

The botanist smiled and tried to break the evident glass between those two.

“Vitya, this is Yurio. He’s a student from Miss Lilia’s academy” Yuuri introduced him with a wide smile “and he is staying with us for a few months!”

 

* * *

 

Yuri Plisetsky had been born in an isolated village attached to the snowy mountains of the West. The region was known for the crudeness of its weather so it was no surprise whenever the youngest and strongest parted away to the big cities in the search for kinder jobs than planting crops on the frozen ground or cutting trees covered in snow.

This had been his mother’s case who had fled to the South where she had not only found a new job but also a new husband and a new life. Yuri had then been trusted to his grandfather’s care

He would have probably followed the path of his classmates in becoming an ax man or a goat keeper if it wasn’t because his powers simply boosted out of nowhere one morning while helping his dear grandpa chop firewood for their morning tea.

Of course Nikolai would never let his little grandson hold an axe before he turned at least fifteen but in the meantime, he could perfectly let him place the chopped pieces back inside their home. Everything was going perfectly normal when Yuri let out a scream.

Nikolai’s protecting instincts kicked in immediately and he ran towards the sound, expecting to see a bleeding knee or perhaps a small bruise but what was before his eyes was something he wasn’t ready for.

His grandson was frighteningly holding a log exploiting in icy stalagmite-like peaks. Just like the ones an ice wizard was able to do, just like the ones his long runaway father was able to do.

Much to Nikolai’s sadness, he wrote a letter to his friend Lilia in the Capital who was known to run Wizarding School known for hosting and graduating some of the most talented wizards in the country. It was really far away for his Yurotchka, but with the bullying coming from his classmates and the chatting from the townspeople, perhaps being away in the Capital would be a good idea.

Little Yuri soon demonstrated to be one of Lilia’s most promising students. He was powerful, he knew the extent of his powers, how to calculate his enemy’s weaknesses at first sight, he was fast in a fight and yet graceful. But he also was little aware of how to use his ice to other purposes other than fighting.

It wasn’t only Lilia who noticed it, but also her students. Including the Crown Prince seating amongst everyone else in the class who was also starting to plan who would he use in the future.

The teacher would soon regret she hadn’t notice before until she was running out of excuses to give to the now King of not using Yuri in this insane war against the North he had gotten the country into.

And now he was at the botanist’s house, fingers splattered in blisters, hands covered in dirt and planning a possible escape if needed because the kid crouching next to him was giving him the creeps because he was speaking to the freaking plants.

“Oi, pig” he called the wizard who was healing a plant with a spell on the working table “is that even normal?”

“Uh?” he looked confused until he made his look at where Yuri’s chin was pointing and let out a laugh “Oh, that. It’s perfectly fine, they are friends!”

Ok, what had Lilia been thinking about when she sent him to that madhouse? The older wizard must have seen his face because he apologized.

“Right, you just arrived… remember when I told you Vitya is not my kid?” beneath his wiggling fingers, a moribund stem got bright green and started to grow soft leaves “Well, that’s because he was born from a flower”

Yuri almost fell off from his squatting position in surprise so he better stood up, plucking off the burdock he had been working on during the entire morning. Victor stared at him in full horror before he exploited into loud cries and started to hit the younger wizard desperately.

“Nooo! Bad bad!” he babbled between tears “Put hed baaack! Don kid hed! Nooo!”

Katsuki rushed to take the plant off his hand and put it back into place, covered the roots with soil as fast as he could and then started to frantically mumble spells under his breath. The kid stopped crying and started to take off some of the tiny flowers on his hair to place them around the freshly replanted roots. As soon as the work was done, the botanist picked up the kid who had started to hiccup out of crying and fear.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay” Yuri’s memory ran all the way back to his grandparent’s house when he saw the kid being comforted by the wizard “She’s fine now, yes? Try talking to her again and ask her if she needs anything else”

The kid wiped his tears with his sleeve and nodded. He crouched next to the burdock and, much to Yuri’s surprise, tapped its stem like he would do with a person “Budot, ad you okay?”

Yuri, already uncomfortable and embarrassed, started to fiddle his feet while the kid nodded at the plants ‘requests’.

“She says she need wated and” the kid pointed at Yuri accusingly “wants you apologize”

“Hah! But how…” he interrupted his complaints the moment the older wizard made gestures behind the kid, asking him to simply agree to the request. He kneeled in front of the plant “I’m sorry, it was a mistake ok?”

“Hmpf!” the kid crossed his arms over his chest in an anger that was almost comical before spitting water at the plant with a small kid’s hose.

Before he started to complain again, the older wizard simply grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him to the working table where he handed him a pair of scissors in a clear gesture of cutting the withered leaves off one of the plants on the table while the older wizard retook his tasks.

“You see, Vitya was originally a flower grown through a spell” Yuuri started to tell quietly, preferably ignoring the surprised grin on his protégé “He was to be a speaking flower but I made a small addition to the spell and Vitya was born. I can’t deny I got frightened when he was born out of a pot but we have been doing well so far and aside from his growth and the blooms, he’s a perfectly normal kid”

Yuri gave a quick eyeshot at the now chuckling kid. He was sitting in front of the plant and speaking to it so softly it was hardly audible.

“You know normal kids don’t talk to plants, right?”

The botanist laughed and nodded absently. The plant he had been working on was now shining green in health, not a single spot of withered stem visible at all. Evidently content with his work, he simply commanded Yuri’s pot to slide smoothly to his own workplace and started to examine it carefully.

“I actually see it as something normal considering how he came into the world, you know? In the end, that was his very first nature and I actually like that he has some friends to play with inside the house” Yuri could’ve sworn he saw a glimpse of sadness for the smallest second on the eyes of the older “Since getting friends for him would be hard with his growth spurts…”

“I still don’t understand those” Yuri let out “He looks, talks and acts like any other four year old would do to me”

The botanist proceeded to explain with full detail the very first days Victor after Victor had been born, how even his acquaintances would notice how quickly he was changing and how little time Yuuri himself had to adapt to those changes. From anything to how soon he would leave bottle milks behind to how he would suddenly express his wishes to go to school with the other kids he saw from the window in the morning.

“Ah, I wouldn’t recommend you to put him in a school unless it’s one for magic” Yuri mumbled, cleaning another plant’s dead leaves. These were harder than the previous’ and he needed to force the scissors on it “I heard a lot of rumors back in the kitchens of the Academy and in the train from the passengers. All saying that JJ idiot was recruiting anyone who was in age for combat, even teachers”

“JJ? Is that how he likes to be called now?” the older wizard chuckled while filling a pot with new black soil “Well, he was always sort of extravagant”

Yuri finally managed to break the withered branches and pushed the plant to the other side of the working table. There were still a good lot waiting for him to groom on the ground and on the other working table, according to his now teacher, those were going to be magic-modified to resist the winter and still give fruit.

“You know JJ?” even Yuri himself felt his eyebrows getting knitted in confusion “But you’re too old to be in his class…”

The other one simply laughed and nodded before reminding him that idiot or not, JJ was the one to inherit the throne and so his parents had asked Miss Lilia to send him into constant magical practices outside the Academy. When it was time for him to train with Nature Magic, he was sent to famous water wizard Celestino at the same time he and his friend Phichit were doing their own practices for five years though the then-prince had barely stayed half a year.

“I wouldn’t say those were smooth months neither for him nor for us” the wizard chuckled again “He was very stubborn with whatever Celestino indicated us to do and he is famous for being quite impatient”

“He hasn’t changed at all” Yuri grumbled “If it wasn’t for the Council, everything everywhere would be done ‘JJ Style’ and trust me when I tell you that’s with no style at all!”

“Yuudi” Victor’s small voice interrupted.

The kid was rubbing his eyes and his legs were wobbly in sleepiness. With a quick look at the greenhouse’s crystal ceiling, Yuri deduced it would probably be nap time by how low the sun was hanging in the sky.

“Wanna go for a nap, sweetie?” the botanist lifted up the kid who draped all over in sleepiness “Come on, I’ll take you to bed”

Those two were quite the thing, Yuri thought while he saw their blurry silhouettes making for the second floor through the crystal walls.

When Lilia had told him of sending him away for magical practices, he was seriously reluctant to leave the Academy. He wasn’t even interested in any medicine branch of the magical education, not to say his showy magic was better taken advantage of in more interesting tasks than healing like combat, rescuing, sailing or industry even. His strict teacher was then forced to explain him the situation he was in and how the King was evidently planning to use him for the sake of war.

He was also warned by his teacher about the kid living with the botanist, but here seemed to be a lot of things in the background of that child than were evident. It was in the middle of those thoughts when the botanist came back.

“Sorry” he apologized as a greeting, scratching his neck “Vitya was up really early today, he likes going to the Nishigoris to see the cows and he sometimes gets ice cream if they have made so I wouldn’t have the heart to leave him behind when I go…”

“You still haven’t explained it to me” Yuri blurted

“Uh?” the botanist looked at him with clear confusion. Yuri rolled his eyes without stopping his cutting chore.

“The growth spurts or whatever” he pushed the now groomed plant to the other border of the table where the older wizard received it, now with a more comprehensive grin.

Yuuri started to recall the very first time he noticed how much the baby had suddenly grown overnight was exactly the very first morning when the small shirt the Nishigoris had quickly gifted them with when the baby had been born was suddenly tight over the small body. When they had met again at the market, his friend made him see how the supposed ‘newborn’ already had the size of an infant and so on.

“My teacher has offered to help me finding information about Victor’s kind but it’s already been six months and she has hardly find anything” the wizard explained absently. Yuri remembered Lilia had told him about the said Minako, a fine witch according to her “But through our letters we have sort of a common theory that he grows like a plant, a really fast-growing youth which would then decrease and turn into a long but constant aging”

“Like a tree” Yuri mumbled while his elder nodded “But you don’t have an exact way to measure his age then?”

“Well, no… I assume he is about four or five but I have no way to know it for true” the botanist looked a little sad on that.

Yuri thought he would also be sad if there wasn’t a way of knowing the age of someone important for him, not being able to celebrate birthdays or to have celebrations for achievements. But on the other hand, perhaps it was better if the botanist had had to celebrate a birthday party with cake, presents and all every time the kid decided it was a good time to grow up again.

He packed those thoughts at the background of a mental drawer and got back to work. He still had a whole lot of plants to clean, fruit to pick up from the ground, seeds to sort, medicine to prepare, soil to depurate from worms and so much more to do.

The young wizard sighed heavily and continued to chop off dead leaves.

 

* * *

 

After the episode of basically killing one of the kiddo’s friends back in the greenhouse, Yurio had a harder time earning the scarce confidence back.

Had he been in a larger space with more people surrounding him like in the Academy, he would have probably just put that teary face at the very back of his mind where it wouldn’t bother him but in the small house where the only inhabitants besides him were the botanist and the kid.

So he really had to put his two cents if he didn’t want to live awkwardly for the following year.

“Oi kiddo” he called from the kitchen while boiling some herbs in oil “wanna help me?”

His hands were pretty busy chopping the stems and moving the oil so it gets warm and takes the essence out of them but nor burn them. He needed a hand with getting the buds out of the ones which had early flowers. Victor was crouched on the small round table over a large book, probably practicing his reading or something.

“No” Victor replied simply, making Yuri feel the warmth of anger quickly escalate on his body.

He had to ease his breath and his temper before asking anew.

“Can you please help me?” he brought up the sweetest voice he could achieve, hoping for a better success. Much to his relief, the kid nodded flatly, sliding off the chair and making for the kitchen; he started to work quietly, simply plucking the buds off and not paying attention to him.

“Say… what’s your favorite flower kiddo?” alright, that wasn’t the most strategical of questions to gain a kid, but he barely knew anything about him.

“Blu floweds” Victor replied instantly much to Yuri’s relief.

“Any kind of blue flowers?” the child nodded vigorously without setting his eyes off the work. His still-tiny hands were working fast wonders on the buds “Why blue flowers?”

“Yuudi likes blu” Victor said quietly, and Yuri could have sworn a little pink flower popped up on the crown of his head.

The old wizard had told him that with a little attention he had realized whenever Victor got a new bloom on his hair, it was directly linked to a strong wave of emotion and the emotion got reflected on the color. He had even written a color code and put on the fridge with Hasetsu-souvenir-themed magnets but there was no information on the pink code.

“You like living with Yuuri?” maybe he should start taking the herbs out of the mixture but first he needed to levitate the jars towards him. He felt a little tug on his pants, looking down at the kid offering freshly groomed herbs smiling in what seemed like a heart.

“A lot!” he chirped “Yudio like livin wit Yuudi and Vitod?”

His brain even ignored the kid at the thought of the question. Yuri had to admit he was actually expecting very little out of that visit other than getting bored working and he sure didn’t expect anything as harsh, demanding and tough as life in the Academy. It was then strange that he was actually having fun and learning something new.

“I guess I do” he mumbled, finally reacting on Victor’s presence. He ducked a little to pick the herbs off the kid’s hands when, while brushing his fingertips against Victor’s, he noticed something shocking. Not minding the herbs anymore, he grabbed those still chubby fingers and drew them close to his eyes to examine them better, only confirming his suspicions.

The oil started to boil, drying and burning the herbs in it making the mixture unusable; but the young wizard was so shocked with his discovery he didn’t even notice.

“C’mere” he picked the kid off the floor and ran in the search of his mentor “Oi! Pig! Where are you?”

 

* * *

“For Merlin’s underpants…” Yuuri muttered while examining Victor’s fingertips “Then, these are like a tree’s rings you say?”

“Well how wouldya explain it?” Yuri questioned

“Is Vitod okay?” the kid’s crystal blue eyes were starting to get teary, visibly scared of all of those examinations. Yuuri got reminded of how he would get frightened in every visit to the doctor as a child after basically getting traumatized after an injection.

The botanist smooched Victor’s cheeks to ease him down, getting tears in his own eyes. Yet, those weren’t fright tears, but happy ones; he closed the distance between them and embraced the kid tightly.

Vitya had no fingerprints at all, but a small spiral, noticeable at the very center of each of the kid’s finger. Only four were fully visible and touchable, there was another one in the making. Those, the exact same way as the rings of a tree, indicated his age. Four tender years old.

“Yuudi cry” Victor wiped the tears off his cheek “Yuudi oksy?”

Yuuri kissed Victor’s forehead loudly “Yuuri is okay, sweetie. I’ve never been better”

“We should get him a cake or something”

The botanist turned to see his protégé who diverted his eyes in a failed attempt to look uninterested, with his crossed arms and pouty mouth but it was evident how moved he was through the blush of his cheeks.

“You should do something for the four previous birthdays at least” Yurio blurted.

“That’s a wonderful idea Yurio!” he turned to see the little kid in his arms “What do you say Vitya? Want to have some cake and candy with some friends?”

“Keki?!” Vitya chirped “Yei! Keki!”

 

* * *

 

Given that the only friends Victor had had constant approach were the Nishigoris with their triplets who would play with him and Lilia who would always coo him when she visited the market, it was supposedly easy to deliver invitations to a small family party.

If only they were close by the house.

“You say you’re freaking walking to the Academy?! You know your legs will drop you on the ground before you arrive there, right?”

The older wizard smiled sheepishly, tying his shoelaces one last time at the entrance of the gate and taking out the stroller “If I get tired I can rest but I’m taking the stroller if Vitya gets tired”

Yuri felt his own face contract in a rictus of disbelief before he snatched the stroller off the botanist’s hands and placed the kid on it.

“Now if you want to make him walk all the way there, I’m taking him to choose his cake!”

“Keki?!” the kid questioned with excitement inside the stroller.

“Yes! The most awesome and tastiest cake ever!”

After the botanist agreed with an evident face of relief, Yuri set the stroller to the Bakers’ District in the outskirts and only a fifteen minute walk from there. The botanist had given them money to buy a good cake but not the ‘most awesome and tastiest cake ever’ so Yuri had taken some of his own money out of the carved-wood he kept under his bed.

The instant they entered into the Baker’s District the smell of freshly-baked bread hit them like a wave to the point he had to wipe off Victor’s drooling twice. The kid’s eyes seemed to get larger whenever they would walk in front of a showcase exhibiting confectionary at a pretty-looking bakery.

Yuri kept walking forward until he saw Victor’s head out of the stroller, eyes fixed on a creamy rainbow sprinkled cake decorated with spiral marshmallows all over the border. The young magician sighed with a smile before entering the pastry shop with the stroller before him.

It was a pretty place, façade and interior painted in a light blue, furniture made of dark polished wood and old photographs hanging in the walls in a clear sign to show how old the shop was and how its tradition had survived over the years. Oh but the best was the smell: the perfume of freshly baked sweets got entangled with the aroma of the bitter beverages, from coffee to tea.

“Oooh…you picked a nice one kiddo” Yuri complimented, standing on his tiptoes to ring the little service bell on the counter.

“Coming” a stoic voice called from what Yuri presumed to be the kitchen.

Had he said the best thing was the smell? God was he wrong because the guy who had just walked into the room was quite the competition to a freshly baked good.

Tall, wide shouldered, cool haired, eyes as stoic and deep as his voice, features so sharp he could chop an entire salad with his jaw…alright, his brain was messing up with him. Yurio could only hope that the guy wouldn’t notice it.

“Oh…welcome to Altin Pastries” well shit, Yurio had a crush “I’m Otabek…eh, how can I tell…Sorry! Help you?”

He was blushing! Yuri only hoped it was for him. Victor’s voice greeting back the guy over the counter with a happy hand wave.

“Haiii!”

“Oh… Hi little fella” Otabek returned the hand wave.

“We saw that marshmallow cake from outside, what is the flavor?” Yuri finally asked.

The guy hurried to take the pretty cake inside and showed it on the lowest part of the counter so Victor could see it better. Yuri only hoped the kid wasn’t drooling anew because he had ran out of tissues to clean him.

“The bread is vanilla yellow cake, it has homemade strawberry jelly in the inside, the frosting is whipped cream so it’s a good pick for kids and the decorations are marshmallows and rainbow sprinkles” Otabek’s name returned to a stoic tone while speaking but his appreciation for the art of pastry was noticeable “Is it for the little one here?”

“Yeah, we’re having a birthday party and I promised him the coolest cake!” he ducked to see Victor in the stroller, his huge eyes were even wider in amusement with the cake so close to his face “You want this one buddy?”

“Es pease!” Victor chirped

Otabek packed it nicely in a striped copper and white box with the name of the shop written in pretty calligraphy. He also added a blue bow on one of the corners.

“How much is it going to be?” Yuri asked, getting out the small bag with the botanist’s money and the handful of his own he had kept in his pocket. He was going to use both for sure given the looks of the cake and of the shop.

“Take it as a gift”

Yuri wasn’t sure he had heard right. He lifted his head at the guy over the counter who was holding the pretty cake box in front of him.

“What?!” he looked at the guy over the counter, then at the cake, then at Otabek anew “You can’t do that…I’ll pay you… It’s not fair if we…”

“You said it’s his birthday” the stoic voice interrupted him “It’s a birthday gift”

Even though Yuri tried to pay for the following five minutes, Otabek ended their little quarrel by putting the cake box in a paper bag in the lower part of the stroller and basically pushing them out of the pastry shop. Victor was happy of having his cake and happily waved goodbye to the baker while Yuri was too confused to get embarrassed for leaving without paying.

“Enjoy it and please come around some other day” the baker waved back at the kid from the shop’s door.

Yuri’s birthday was way too far to come again anytime soon and even the pig’s birthday for his liking. Well, he would have to think of an excuse to buy cakes.

“Alright, we will” he started to push the stroller and the happy kid inside back home “Bye and thanks”

 

* * *

“ _Happy birthday to you_

_Happy birthday to you_

_Happy birthday dear Vitya!_

_Happy birthday to you!”_

The singing could have easily reached five miles away from the botanist’s house and any other day, he himself would have been terribly conscious of how that could bother his neighbors. But that day was a happy one, and worries simply had no place.

“Come on sweetie” Yuuri cheered “Blow strong. Fiuu!”

Vitya nodded vigorously while the last remains of clapping and cheering faded away. His eyes fixed shortly on the moving flames before shutting them tightly. Yuuri had told him  he was to make a wish, but it had to be a secret only known to him so he wrinkled his nose before blowing as hard as he could.

“Fiuuu!”

Clapping resonated again when the flames were off. Miss Lilia started to cut perfectly-shaped slices, Yuuko helped to hand out the small colorful plates amongst the guests who were leaving their neatly-prepared gifts on a table set a little aside.

“Congratulations sweetie!” Yuuri smooched the kid’s cheeks, stealing a happy chuckle

The rest of the evening, the botanist’s house was filled with laughs, happiness, cake and games leaving Vitya already rubbing his bright eyes by the time the sun had just hid behind the mountains. He was sleepily nuzzling against Yuuri’s chest, the botanist holding him while waving goodbye to their last guests.

“Good night Yuuri-kun! Good night Victor-kun!” Yuuko was striving to hold one of her triplets with an arm and waving goodbye with the free one “See you around!”

“Say bye bye to Yuuko” Yuuri encouraged, wiggling his hand for him “Bye bye!”

Yuuri stayed by the gate until the last reminiscence of his childhood friends was lost in a mixture of darkness and distance. Victor was heavy in his arms and on his chest, making feel guilty for not letting him open the gifts until the party was over but now he was too tired to do so.

He decided to make for the room with the kind in his arms, rocking him slowly and with a little effort. The kid was heavier each day, but that made him smile widely. His arms threated to give out right when he placed the kid on their shared bed.

The botanist made another trip downstairs to pick the gifts and arranged a little tower next to the bed so Victor would have a nice wake up surprise. Though Yurio had helped him to move the tables back inside the house before going to sleep, there were still a couple of dishes waiting to be washed in the kitchen but when he finally gathered up the will to go downstairs, he fell a little hand tugging his clothes.

“Yuudi…” Victor’s voice mumbled in his sleep

Yuuri smiled and sighed quietly. He took off his shoes and changed into his pajamas before snuggling next to Victor.

The dishes could wait until morning.

 

 


End file.
